Can You Recognize the Risks that Appear in Your Email?

Email is often said to be one of the favorite mediums for cyberattacks, especially against individuals and businesses. This is because email attacks are easily hidden within its content, such as an embedded image, an attachment, or a link. Here is how to know if an email is a scam. 

When you’re reading over an email you should be as vigilant as possible. Always look for reasons not to click on links or open attachments, because if they are dangerous, the reasons will be there. Extra caution is better than attackers getting into your device. Here are three major warning signs that might help you identify a malicious email.

Spelling and Grammar Errors

A major warning sign that is super easy to look for is grammar and spelling errors. If you’re receiving an email from a company or a professional source, spelling errors should not be abundant. If an email is hard to understand written in a clunky way, this is a sign that you should not open any link or click on any attachment. Though, this isn’t always a sign, because some phishing emails can be written really well in order to trick you into believing it. There are other ways to tell as well.

Links Leading to Obscure Targets

Make sure that any link you are sent is what it claims to be, without clicking on it. Carefully hovering over a link can help you see where it leads to and if it isn’t where it says it is supposed to go, you definitely should not be clicking it. 

Messages from Unknown Senders

Another huge red flag is if the email is from an unknown sender. If it is from someone who doesn’t usually or shouldn’t be reaching out to you, it might be fake. Even if you know the sender, but the email seems suspicious, see if the addresses match the one you have on file. If this is an impersonation scam, you will want to talk to your IT department so that measures can be taken against this attacker.

Luckily, most of these emails can be taken out of your inbox before you see them with an enterprise-level spam filter. Even so, you still want to be vigilant and be cynical when it comes to opening emails. MyTek can help you employ a spam filter and help with any other email security concerns you may have. Give us a call today at 623-312-2440 to learn more.