How to Avoid Phish

Unlike the band (depending on who you ask, I suppose) to get ‘phished’ is not as groovy, wavy, or as psychedelic as their malicious digital counterpart.

We’ve all no doubt heard of the blowback and headaches that notorious phishing scams can cause, but how can you stay alert and protected when you cross paths with a potential scam?

I’m sure, right now, in your Spam inbox, you may find a number of emails from a sender masquerading as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc… asking you to “verify” certain aspects of your personal information i.e. credit card number, address, phone number, and in some cases even your Social Security number. I’ve dealt with a few of these cases personally, where the victim unfortunately thought these requests were legitimate.

Some things you can make yourself aware of if you feel a possible phishing email has pushed its way past your spam filter:

-Note the subject line of the email. How’s the grammar? Does it sound fishy (forgive the pun) if you say it aloud to yourself? For example, Apple will never let even the slightest grammatical/syntax error go unnoticed, so if you receive an email from “Apple” and it reads like the first draft of a fifth graders procedural essay, delete it.

-What’s the point of the email? Scammers are getting craftier by the day as cybersecurity measures are getting better and better at weeding out the malicious parties trying to swipe your personal info, so it’s unlikely that they’ll come right out the gate asking for your credit card number. Instead they may try to get you to follow a link to their page to “verify” your personal info. Let’s just say, for the sake of this example, that you follow the link. Keep in mind, if it really is an email sent from Apple, the web address won’t look like: (http://apleid.apple.com.apple.givemeyourmoneyplease.4573949034.ithinkimsoclever.apple.com). One thing to note here if you do click on their given link, Apple will never just use an ‘http’ address. All Apple websites are prefixed with ‘https’, with the ‘s’ meaning that a secure certificate is in use to encrypt the communications between your device and the Apple web server.

-Above all else, use your better judgement. If you have a sneaking suspicion that the email you’ve received isn’t genuine, call the company. If your account is really about to be deactivated, or your subscription is truly about to run out, a customer support representative of the company will certainly tell you.

And please, don’t use the number listed in the email.