Phishing Threats – How to Identify and Avoid Targeted Email Attacks

Phishing threats have been around for years. By now anyone can easily detect a fake email, right?

Wrong. How confident are you that you wouldn’t divulge your password, credit card info or online identity? Here is a quick refresher on phishing threats and what you can do to protect yourself.

What is Phishing?

As you may already know, phishing threats involve malicious emails that attempt to get you to disclose your personably identifiable information (PII) to compromise your personal identity or corporate data.

Hackers create emails that look like official communications from familiar companies. These are sent to millions of unsuspecting addresses in hopes that someone will follow the links and share sensitive information that the hackers can exploit. These phishing emails employ a variety of techniques.

How to Spot Phishing Attacks

The best way to protect yourself from phishing threats is to recognize and avoid these common phishing tactics:

• Generic greetings: The opening lines of phishing emails are often very vague and general in nature.
• Typos or Poor Grammar: A poorly written email is less likely to have come from a legitimate company. In addition, do not be tricked if the email happens to include a legitimate-looking logo.
• Urgency: Phishing emails often sound alarmist, trying to scare you into taking action (and sharing your information) immediately.
• Fake Links: Phishing emails routinely obscure the URL addresses, and instead take you to an unsecured site where your sensitive data is solicited. To see exactly where a link will take you, simply hover over it. If in doubt, don’t click it. Instead, open a new browser session and manually enter the address (i.e., don’t copy and paste) you want to visit.
• Attachments: Delivered via email attachments, malware that is executed (i.e., the attachment is opened) allows a hacker to exploit vulnerabilities on your computer Never open an attachment unless you are sure it is legitimate, safe and expected. Be cautious with any unexpected invoices from companies you’re not familiar with, as attachments might contain malware that installs upon opening.
• Spoofed Sender: Makes it easier for a hacker to impersonate someone you’d normally trust (e.g., coworker, bank, government agency)

Take the Phishing IQ Test

Interested in seeing how well you are at telling the difference between a legitimate website and one that is a phishing attempt? Take the SonicWall Phishing IQ Test to find out.

SonicWall Staff