Tips to Help You Identify a Phishing Message

We’ve all heard the horror stories of phishing messages—those messages where someone is trying to steal information from you, be it sensitive information or financial credentials. There are various telltale signs of phishing attacks that can be identified, if you know where to look. Let’s take a look at what the FTC claims are the best ways to identify a phishing message.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, there are various ways to recognize a phishing attack. Here are just a few of them:

• Phishing messages come from companies or services you are familiar with. Some of the most successful phishing campaigns are those that convince users that they are legitimate by impersonating well-known companies like Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc.
• Phishing messages will try to trick you into clicking a link or downloading an attachment. The goal of phishing messages is to scam users out of their sensitive information or download infected attachments. Once you realize that this is their goal, you can be extra cautious about any messages that ask this of you. Some of the most common types of phishing messages might include order receipts, invoices, or other types of documents that you might want to download under specific circumstances. We urge you to take caution and to consider if the request makes sense before downloading the attachment, and to confirm the identity of the sender first.
• Phishing messages might ask you to update financial credentials or confirm sensitive information. Sometimes phishing messages will ask you to change your password, financial information, or order placement details. They do so because they think they can get you to provide this information due to how commonplace online ordering is in today’s business world. In cases like this, you can usually confirm that these messages are fake by going to the service itself through a trusted portal (separate from the email you received) to see if indeed you actually must take the “required” action.

Phishing messages can be challenging to identify at times, which is why it helps to implement solutions that can prevent phishing messages from arriving in your inbox in the first place. Through powerful tools like unified threat management solutions and effective training practices, you can help your employees make the best decisions about how to identify and respond to phishing messages. To this end, Washington Works can help.

Our trusted technicians can help you implement the best solutions on the market and train your employees to best address phishing issues. To learn more, reach out to us at 301-571-5040.