Do you know how to spot a bogus email?
Email has become the lifeblood for many companies, allowing us to connect and communicate globally almost instantly. But with email a serious risk is created, both to you and those you communicate with. Those who use the Internet world for evil are constantly targeting unsuspecting people. So to help you be more secure, take a moment to review the following to see if you are “Switched On” in your security posture.
To help us clean up your email security posture, apply some SOAP.
Stop-> When checking your email, look closely at the subject and senders. Are they ones you are expecting or know of? Are you getting something that doesn’t make sense like free trip offers, unexpected invoices, neat videos to watch, and the like? Does the email make a request for information that seems odd – usernames, passwords, etc.?
Observe-> While social media users typically show very sloppy use of grammar, business emails should not. Questioning the email content should become a habit. “Is the subject line legitimate? Does the email contain only links to an unknown website? Is the spelling and grammar poorly handled? Does the sender’s name appear valid,” are all reasonable tests to apply to every email.
Attachments-> Document attachments, like DOCX, XLSX and PDF are common in the globally connected world, but they can be an easy launching point for virus or malware attacks. Are you wary of email attachments from unknown sources? Seasonal “fun” attachments are never a safe bet. If you are not expecting an attachment from a colleague or customer, consider an immediate delete! Better safe than sorry. Asking, “Hey, can you resend that…” is less problematic than a security incident.
Protect-> Tweaking a line from Smokey the Bear, “Only you can help prevent email attacks.” If something looks amiss, it most likely is. Apply some SOAP to it and delete that email.