Phishing Prevention Tips

You have received an email from your bank informing you that there is an issue with your account. Here are some tips you can use to identify the legitimacy of the email.

Authority

Research has found that people tend to comply with requests from authority figures. Thus, phishing scams claim to be from a trusted source by using a corporate logo or name as the sender to attempt to create legitimacy and credibility.

Time Pressure

Phishing scams may request a rapid response to pressure users to act quickly, and decrease the time users have to uncover the scam.

Tone

Phishing scams often use a formal tone with a combination of persuasive and polite statements to influence user decision making. Examples include: polite salutations and closures (e.g., Dear, Thank you, Kind regards); trigger words (e.g., alert, warning, attention); and persuasion (e.g., upon verification, restrictions will be removed).

Fear

Phishing scams may prey on users' fear of something to manipulate them into acting. Cybercriminals may invoke fear by making threats (e.g., account restrictions) or leveraging current events (e.g., natural disasters, health epidemics, economic concerns, political elections, holidays).