Phishing Emails

Phishing emails are malicious emails that attempt to harm or steal information from the recipient. These phishing emails can come in many different forms and it is important to stay vigilant when checking your email. The most important thing to do in order to avoid a phishing attack is to NOT open any links or attachments from someone you don’t recognize or trust, ideally, you shouldn’t open these emails at all but that isn’t always possible. If you do open a link make sure that you don’t provide any information to the website, as they often create fake websites to mimic real ones and steal login information. Also, make sure to keep your software up to date in order to protect your computer from malware. 

The next issue that needs to be addressed is how you can recognize these phishing emails. As mentioned earlier any email that you aren’t expecting can be a phishing email, but sometimes these phishing emails can disguise themselves as an email you would expect, but there are still some telltale signs. Firstly you should check for spelling mistakes because these emails and websites are often created quickly and can be prone to errors, but these are not always present. Next, I would make sure to read the URL for links very carefully, because phishing emails will often use website URLs that look very similar to the original, but they have to change them very slightly, but these differences can be very subtle so it is important to be careful. 

Lastly and perhaps most importantly it is important never to panic if you receive a phishing email. These emails often try to create a sense of urgency to provoke you to act quickly and stop you from using your best judgment, so it is important to remain calm because they want you to panic.