You may be thinking, not another warning about phishing e-mails! The fact is that most scams, hoaxes, malware and ransomware starts with a phishing e-mail, designed to trick you into giving out your personal information or credit card. The phishing e-mail does this by asking you to click a link, open an attachment or call a phone number. The scammer wants to steal your identity, money or infect your device with spyware or malware.
Phishing e-mails are getting more sophisticated, look more real, and can fool even the most savvy of e-mail readers. Don’t be embarrassed if you have fallen for a phishing e-mail. The best clue that it is phishing is if the “real” e-mail sender is not from the company who supposedly sent you the e-mail. Keep learning.
Phishing e-mails appeal to your emotions and curiosity. Here are the most frequent ones:
- 1) ”Greed”
– to claim your $100 gift card from [CVS / Target / Home Depot / …] complete this survey.
– You did not win anything; do not fill out unsolicited surveys. - 2) “Fear”
– call or click for a refund if you did not make this large purchase from [Amazon / Xfinity / …]
– There is no purchase on your credit card; do not call the scammer. - 3) “Protection Expired”
– Your [Norton / McAfee / …] security has expired and you will be charged a lot to renew.
– You do not have this protection; you are not being charged; do not call the number in the email. - 4) “Need Your Personal Information”
– Need your personal information to release millions of dollars found at [airport / embassy / post office / inheritance]
– There is no money. DO NOT provide any personal information to anyone you do not know
I continue to diligently search for solutions to block phishing e-mails. Although they exist for corporation domain e-mails, there apparently is NO solution for gmail, AOL, yahoo, comcast, centurylink, embarqmail, hotmail, outlook, live, msn or the e-mail services that you and I use.
The only thing even close to being helpful is security awareness training that can send you a short 2-minute educational video once a week, While I would be charged $200 a month for a 3-year contract, I can make the awareness training available to you for only $3 a month or $30 a year. Before I commit to this, I need to know how many of my clients would be interested to learn how to stay safer online. Please let me know before September 1st.
I am committed to protect your computers at an affordable price. Thank you for trusting me to keep your computers healthy. Contact us at 239-567-0104 when it is time to renew your protection software, or if you need computer and internet help. Be well.
By Linda Lindquist, September 19, 2022
