Due to the daily sending of billions of emails, there is a significant chance that viruses and malware will find their way into your mailbox. Even if the rate of emails with hazardous attachments is only 2.3%, millions of emails still contain these threats. Knowing how to recognize threats immediately is the greatest way to protect yourself from dangerous stuff that is sent to your mailbox. Keep in mind these guidelines to spot a dangerous email to protect yourself from harmful attachments, phishing scams, and more.
The Most Common Ways to Identify a Dangerous Email
Some email threats are harder to identify than others, and hackers’ attacks are becoming extremely advanced.
STRANGE SENDER INFORMATION
When analyzing a suspicious email, one of the first things you should look at is the sender’s address. Be aware of more “regular” looking addresses as well. Of course, any communications sent from strangers or lists you haven’t subscribed to are matter for concern. Hackers commonly adopt the identities of legitimate firms like banks and retailers in an effort to trick you into opening an email.
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Phishing is one of the most popular email scams. Your personal information, such as credit card numbers, passwords, or account information, will be collected in a phishing email. These emails often focus on fabricating a false feeling of urgency, offering information that sounds too good to be true, and other strategies to obtain your information in order to persuade you to expose your most private information. Never provide personal information over email in order to prevent being a victim of phishing emails.
HARMFUL ATTACHMENTS
a majority of dangerous emails contain an attachment. In fact, recent studies found that a whopping 85 percent of malicious emails contained an attached file in the form of .DOC, .XLS, .PDF, .ZIP, or .7Z . While not all attachments are harmful, you should be extremely cautious if you weren’t expecting to receive an attachment via email.
SUSPICIOUS LINKS
Emails with links you don’t recognize or weren’t expecting to receive are another telltale sign you can use to spot a risky email, similar to attachments. Most harmful connections will either be missing information, lead to unknown websites, or may just be made up of random characters and digits. Prior to selecting any links.