How to Identify Phishing Email? Explore Here!

Well, are you sure that the email in your inbox is genuinely from the bank or is it from a fraudster? Are you a victim of phishing scams? Do not know how to identify phishing email and avoid phishing scams?

If you are in such trouble, continue to be read this write-up. In this blog, we covered-up the sections, which will help to protect yourself from phishing attacks by taking some necessary actions.

Now, in this modern era of internet – companies and individuals are frequently targeted by cybercriminals via cyber scams through email phishing, email spoofing, etc. In these scams, fraudsters used to send email messages which looks like coming from a legitimate source, but not actually. By doing so, it enables them to easily gain the trust of receiver. In these emails, sender usually asks to click on a link or attachment. Then, it takes the receiver to the page where they confirm their personal information like account data or other confidential information.

It is the process in which hacker cons the user to steal their personal or crucial data. After obtaining the information, hacker creates new credentials or install a virus or malware into their system.

What is Email Phishing?

Nowadays, the organizations and internet users are aware of email phishing. However, its extent of damage is often unknown. Phishing involves scammer to gain unauthorized access to private information of organizations that scammer uses for personal gain. Most commonly, information steal by the phishers is bank account details that carries various personal information. Once they obtain the details, they may use it for withdrawing money by making an online transaction using the victim’s account.

Follow the Instance Given Below:

Suppose, you notice the following image in your email message. How will you identify phishing email? What will you do to avoid phishing scams?

Normally, there is no sign of perception to recognize phishing email messages or links coming in your inbox. It actually looks genuine and has a structure to make users panic by indicating “account is on hold and having some trouble with current billing information”.

It’s often difficult to make the difference between a fake and verified email. But most of the emails have some hidden hints, identify them to protect yourself from phishing attacks.

How to Identify Phishing Email and Avoid Phishing Scams?

A malicious email from the scammer might look real which might make-believe that it is originating from a genuine sender. The phishers send emails and pretend that anything they are doing is in your favor. Hence, it is important to recognize phishing email. Failure to know, this may have to face real consequences for the people who give their sensitive information to the scammers.

Things to Keep in Mind From Falling into Email Phishing

Here, we have enlisted some of the important tips to avoid phishing scams. These will prevent you from falling into the scam of email phishing and also helps to identify phishing email.

• Legitimate companies never ask your sensitive information via email or through other mediums.
• Companies don’t use generic greetings to call you like “Hi Dear”. They usually use your registered name to call you.
• Authorized organizations own a specific domain email address. Thus, it is always important to check the email address before giving the response to protect yourself from phishing email/websites. Sometimes fraudsters use company email addresses by adding alternate digits or letters along with it. Check out the difference between the two emails, given as an example of altered email address: charlie@payitt.com instead of email: charlie@payit.com respectively.
• Email from a legitimate organization has professionalism. In order to avoid phishing scams, the user can simply identify it by checking the syntax of the email. Scam emails generally have bad grammar and incorrect spellings.

Some Extra Precautions

• Companies never forces users to go through a website. However, it can be seen that emails from the scammers generally includes hyperlinks. Upon clicking the links, a fake or scam web page gets opened which might include the virus that gets automatically downloaded into the system.
• Authentic institutions never sent unsolicited attachments in the email. In case if the company wants to send an attachment, they will send the information through white papers that users need to download. Under such situation, make sure to check the high-risk attachments file types such as .exe, .zip, .scr, etc. protect yourself from phishing attacks. Suppose if you have any doubts with regards to the information sent by the company, you can directly contact the company via the contact information from the actual enterprise’s website.
• Links sent by the legitimate company always matches the company’s URL. If the hyperlink mentioned in the email is not identical to the link in the text, then it is wise to not trust the URL. It’s just enough to recognize phishing email messages or links.

Risks and Impacts of Email Phishing on Small Organizations

It is not easy to estimate the global financial impact of phishing. Most of business organizations regularly fall victim to phishing attacks. As they fail to educate their resources to sophisticated security networks or awareness to prevent email phishing and protect themselves from falling into the scam. Large business organizations are susceptible to fall into email scams which might risk the confidential information of the company.

It is often seen that small-scale industries are not specifically targeted as they receive generic ways of phishing attempts such as impersonating the service provider or submission of fake invoices or payments. However, in the case of large-scale organization, the situation is more worsened as the phisher tend to impersonate the client or even senior staff. As per the report of Ponemon Institute, in the 2016 year’s first quarter, $3.7 million per attack are on large organizations.

Identify Phishing Email & It’s Risk in Large Organizations

As in big firms, phishers target them by impersonating company managers and orders low-ranked staff to transfer money into their accounts. Expert “whaling”. It can cause a company to lose a large amount of money, even millions of dollars. Moreover, with the financial loss suffered through phishing, companies may also lose their reputation. Building a brand reputation may take a lot of time and dedication. All of these may be lost if the company fall for the scam. Their reputation in the market is untrustworthy and incompetent.

The company’s reputation is not affected by phishing only, spoofing plays equally important role here. It is important that the private information of employees should be protected by the company. Moreover, an organization may also hire a specialized cybersecurity organization to identity phishing email and avoid them to prevent organization from falling into email scams.

Must Take Preventive Measures by the Organizations to Prevent Email Phishing

Below-mentioned are some of the preventive steps to avoid phishing scams in order to protect the organization against phishing, email security threats to identify phishing email. Also, a well-informed employee can help an organization to prevent falling into phishing attacks.

• Regular Security Awareness Training

The organization must educate or train their employees to take preventions & avoid scams. Companies can conduct training sessions and mock phishing scenarios to make them understand about to recognize phishing email messages or links.

• Deploy Security Patches & SPAM Filter

To get rid of phishing scams, a SPAM filter can deploy into the system of employees which can detect viruses, spamming, etc. Moreover, Companies should configure all the systems with the latest security patches and updates.

• Antivirus Solution

Install antivirus into the computers in use for work and protect yourself from phishing attacks. Also, these can prevent the system from viruses or unwanted threats attacks.

• Deploy Web Filter to Recognize and Avoid Phishing Scams

Users can deploy the web filter into the browser to block malicious websites to recognize phishing emails. Moreover, it can be helpful to prevent the system from getting ransomware attacks.

• Encrypt Sensitive Information to Prevent Email Phishing

Companies must encrypt Sensitive or confidential information. Moreover, they should maintain it in such a way that only authorized persons can access it.

Basic & Must Do Meaures That Help Users to Identify Phishing Email 

• Telecommuting Employees Encryption

Employee telecommunication networks also require encryption for utmost safety. So that, it become difficult for the phishers to access it.

• Protect Accounts using Multi-Factor Authentication

Some accounts’ security requires two or more credentials to log in, it is the multi-factor authentication. With this, scammers may have to face the troublesome time when they try to log into the account. This might help to identify phishing email.

• Protect your Data by Backup

Backup the data to some external hard drive storage or cloud service. However, make sure the data is not in connection with your home network.

• Protect System by Using Security Software
  The software to deal with new security threats and prevent email phishing must be installed on the computer. in addition, it will help you in protection from email phishing and unwanted threats or viruses.

Final Verdict

Every organization has to face different challenges which may also include email scams and phishing attacks. “How to identify phishing email?” is one of the common queries among users these days. Finally, this blog states the necessary preventive steps which should be taken to avoid phishing scams. Besides this, users can also use MailXaminer to investigate the scenario. Moroever, by recognize and avoid phishing scams cybercrime, a user can protect the organization from being attacked in the near future.