You hear about people’s hard earned money being defrauded every day and you may be scared that the same might happen to you. There are better ways to keep safe than to keep all your money hidden under your mattress. The best way to protect yourself is to protect all your personal information and keep it away from thugs.
What methods are typically used to get hold of your information?
One of the most common methods criminals use to defraud people is known as Phishing. These are emails claiming to come from a genuine company to try and trick you into disclosing personal information. This is why we know it is important to remind you how to tell the difference between emails that are legitimate and those that are scams. Common features of phishing emails include:
- The sender’s email address does not match the organisation’s website address.
- The email is sent from a completely different address or a free web mail address.
- The email does not use your name, but uses a non-specific greeting like “dear customer”.
- A sense of urgency; for example the threat that unless you act immediately your account may be closed.
- A well-known website link within the email for you to click on – these can be forged or seem very similar to the legitimate address, but even a single character’s difference means a different website.
- A request for personal information such as user names, passwords or bank details.
- The email contains spelling and grammatical errors.
- You have no relationship with the company that appears to have sent the email.
- The entire text of the email is contained within an image rather than the normal text format.
- The image contains an embedded hyperlink to a scam site.
How you can avoid these risks
Protect yourself, avoid leaving your personal information lying around and always remember to first confirm the need before giving personal information to anyone. Never click on a link in a suspicious email, rather type in the web address and look for the secure lock and choose strong passwords, using upper and lower case letters, special characters and numbers. Using Multi Managed Security Services will give you complete peace of mind as Multi secure and strengthen every aspect of your security. Request a free security evaluation or contact us for more information.