BrandProtect Offers Ten Tips to Avoid Being Targeted by Email Scams
Phishers continue to find ways to circumvent anti-phishing
technology as approximately 1.07 percent of all emails contain some form of phishing
attack or scam, according to a study issued in January 2007 by MessageLabs. These
messages can occur in the form of ‘spoof’ emails that lead consumers to counterfeit Web
sites designed to trick them into divulging financial data such as credit card numbers or
other sensitive account information, or even chain emails sent illegitimately from a user’s
email to those on their address list. To help protect email account holders from being
targeted by these types of email scams, BrandProtect, the industry leader in online brand
protection, today announced the top ten ways to avoid having an email account
compromised.
“With the growing complexity of online fraud and brand abuse on the Internet, it has
become increasingly difficult for consumers and email account holders to identify
fraudulent mail and they are often times subject to attack simply by opening the email,” said Hugh Hyndman, CTO, BrandProtect. “BrandProtect analysts are experts in
identifying and taking down online threats and are able to apply this expertise to provide
a list of preventative measures to help avoid being a victim of online attacks.”
“Ten Tips to Avoid Email Attacks”
- Avoid entering in your email address on any mass email sites. For example:
newsletters, “Joke of the Day” emails and coupon distributions.
- Do not click on unknown emails you receive. Spam emails can contain reply scripts
that inform spammers that your email account is active – and that you click on links!
- Stay clear of chain emails and do not reply to any you receive. Often times, these
can be illegitimately sent from an email account address book.
- Avoid publicly listing your email address on any Internet forums.
- Do not participate in sending any mass forwarded emails. You don’t know who
your email address can be passed along to in the chain.
- Set up a spam filter that will weed out emails with malicious coding.
- Use an alternate email address for your banking information that you do not
share elsewhere. This will help you to avoid confusion when receiving inbound emails
regarding banking accounts and also better protect your personal information.
- Use a separate low-limit credit card for online transactions. If the information is
‘hijacked’ somehow, there is low credit limit to which fraudulent charges can be made.
- Avoid the checkboxes during any online transaction. These boxes are often preselected,
including your email on a mailing distribution or permitting it to be ‘shared.’
- Be proactive and stay aware of current email scams. Many organizations and IT
publications report on current trends and spreading emails scams.
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