All too often we come across companies that fall victim to email scams. In this letter I’d like to share a few tips to help you identify (or just question) if the email is legit or not. Lets get started!

FROM

  • You don’t recognize the senders email address.
    • This may not be a major issue but you should be cautious until you know for sure.
  • The email is coming from Outside of the organization and not related to your job tasks.
  • The email is from a familiar source (inside, vendor, partner) but appears unusual.
    • We’ve seen cases where a vendor is requesting to change payment but it’s not normal for this person to send to you.
  • The sender is coming from a suspicious or misspelled domain.
  • The sender is someone I don’t know or do business with.
  • This is an unexpected or unusual email with links or attachments that I wasn’t expecting.

 TO

  • You were copied on the message with several others that you do not know.
  • You were copied on the message with a large batch of others that you do not know.

 LINKS

NOTE - Some companies use link protection systems which will change the link address to test and verify it if clicked upon. If your company uses a system like this, it will be tougher to identify malicious links by hovering on them.

 TIME OF DAY

  • Email arrives at an odd time of day.

 SUBJECT

  • The subject doesn’t match the contents of the email.
  • The email is a reply to something you never requested or sent.

 ATTACHMENTS

  • The attachment doesn’t make any sense or isn’t relevant to the message and you weren’t expecting anything.
  • The attachment is dangerous, like a zip or exe.
  • If it’s a PDF or DOCX and it only includes links to outside sites.

 BODY OF EMAIL

  • Is the sender asking you to click a link, open an attachment, or call someone to avoid a negative consequence or gain something in value?
  • Is the email out of the ordinary or does it have bad grammar or spelling errors?
  • You have a bad feeling about this. Are you questioning whether you should open the attachments or links?
  • Is the email threatening you by releasing some information or pictures about you?

If you get an email that you think might be spam, immediately report it to your IT department so they can check it out. If your company is having difficulties with spam or other IT issues, give Braintek a call at 281-367-8253 or visit us at https://braintek.com. Braintek is an IT Service and Support company that helps small and medium sized businesses in the Houston metro area with their computers, network, email, and security.

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