Stop phishing: Make a cybercriminal’s day miserable!
Every October, the public can learn more about the significance of cyber security through Cyber Month, an internationally renowned campaign. By educating them on easy ways to safeguard themselves and their devices to stay safe online. Here, we’re focusing how to counter phishing scams in order to ruin cybercriminals’ days.
Phishing refers to a cybercriminal’s attempt to obtain sensitive information by impersonating a trusted sender, such as a bank or a government agency. The fourth most typical scam is phishing. We’ll highlight various phishing scams phases in preventing or recovering from all forms of phishing.
Phase 1: When You’ve Been Phished
Even the most knowledgeable tech expert can be duped by a phishing scam. If you’ve been phished take actionable steps to take to recover from a phishing attack, such as:
- Securing affected accounts (E.g. Changing passwords)
- Setting up anti-virus software and automatic software updates
- Data recovery and backup
- Reporting the scam
Phase 2: Where, why it happens
The easier it is to detect phishing, the more you understand about it. Here are a few methods a cyber criminal can approach you for phishing.
- Email, phone, online shopping, gaming, social media and direct messages
- Banking, romance scams, event-based scams
- Ransomware and malware
Phase 3: Prevention
It is simpler to avoid a phishing fraud than to deal with one. This Phase, we’ll demonstrate to how to ruin an internet criminal’s day by adopting precautions like:
- Using strong and unique passwords and passphrases
- Using a password manager
- Enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Regularly backing up your important data
Phase 4: How to avoid phishing
Scammers often update their tactics to keep up with the latest news or trends, but here are some common tactics used in phishing emails or text messages:
- Say they’ve noticed some suspicious activity or log-in attempts — they haven’t
- Claim there’s a problem with your account or your payment information — there isn’t
- Say you need to confirm some personal or financial information — you don’t
- Include an invoice you don’t recognize — it’s fake
- Want you to click on a link to make a payment — but the link has malware
- Say you’re eligible to register for a government refund — it’s a scam
- Offer a coupon for free stuff — it’s not real
