In addition to innovating quality products, as part of our Values we also aim to deliver our customers with extraordinary services beyond their expectations. Our Cyber Essential Plus certificate is a government backed scheme that ensures to protect not just our data but also our clients’ personal information. Read more about our certificate here.
Best way to eliminate a cyber threat or identify phishing is by understanding what it is and how it works.
What is phishing?
Phishing is a very common form of cybercrime, which involves the recipient (or a customer) performing a few specific tasks to share their sensitive data (for eg.: account credentials, bank details). Cybercriminals use different methods for contacting individuals, such as texts, emails, phone calls etc, to obtain this information.
There are multiple ways to identify a phishing email.
Generic Greetings: If you get an email from one of your trusted merchants, sellers, or the organisation that works with you and the email starts with a generic greeting like “Good Day,” or “Dear Sir or Madam” it may well be a warning sign of a phishing email. The organisation you work(ed) with should know your name.
Urgent Call to Action (or even threat): Emails that ask you to urgently click, open, call or download a link or an attachment should be considered as a scam attempt. These emails often instruct you to act immediately to claim a reward or avoid penalty. Their purpose is to create a false sense of urgency leaving the individual with less time to think things through which is why it is a common tactic in cyber crime. Tip: pause and think things through before proceeding.
Mismatched email domains: If an email claims to be from a company with a high reputation like your bank but the email is sent from another domain such as gmail.com it is more likely to be a scam. Be aware of very subtle misspellings of the legitimate domain name as well. This approach is common to scammers.
Suspicious link or attachments: Many phishing emails contain suspicious links or attachments. If you think the email is a scam, avoid opening any links or attachments it contains. There is a simple trick to see if the link is matching with the address that was typed into the email by hovering your mouse over and resting it on the link – do not click! Resting the mouse on the link should reveal the real web address of the link. If the real web address is not a match to the link you should ultimately delete the email.
Spelling and bad grammar: There is usually an experienced editorial staff at a professional organisation that ensures they always give high quality and professional content to their customer base. If an email contains obvious spelling or grammatical errors it is possibly a scam. Sometimes they’re deliberate attempts to avoid filters that try to block them.
Infrequent or first-time senders: It is not uncommon to receive an email from someone for the first time, especially if they are outside your organisation, but it also can be a sign of phishing. If you get an email from someone or if you do not recognise the organisation, take some time to examine the email before proceeding. If you recognise the company name but the email contains few of the above points make sure you do not proceed.
Check The signature: Datum’s Signature has changed over the years, the current format is below. If the signature is just a logo then this is likely a phishing email. Banner content may be changed but the layout is typically the same.