What to look for to spot a fake email
We all use the email in our day to day, in one way or another. We can be in contact with other people, register, link it to a social network… For this reason it is essential to protect it and not fall into the trap of cybercriminals. Detecting a fake email is essential to avoid problems.
Address
The first clue you may have is look at the direction of that account that sends you an e-mail. That can tell you if it is a scam or something reliable. Always run away from strange addresses, with names that don’t make much sense. In many cases it is even more than obvious, since you will see a combination of letters and numbers that have nothing to do with the supposed company or person who sends you an email.
Therefore, just by taking a look at the email address you can already rule out. Look at details such as the lack of a letter or that a digit has been changed to mislead and pretend to be an official address.
subject and message
Of course, you should also look at the mail subject and also the message. There you will see grammatical errors, phrases that do not make much sense, bad translation, etc. It is another clear clue that we can have to see that an email that we have received can become a danger and put our device at risk.
However, you should keep in mind that hackers are increasingly improving their attacks. They can create issues that seem real and a very well written message to mislead and not arouse suspicion.
Possible links or images
You must look at any rare link or images have the mail Sometimes what they do is attach a screenshot in the body of the message to make it look like there is actually text written on it. Once you click anywhere on that image, it takes you to a fake URL, where a Phishing attack can start.
It is essential that you do not click on a link without knowing if it is really reliable or not. Phishing attacks are based on that, on a false link that slips in to take the victim to a page where they can steal passwords or data.
Urgency or need for mail
This is important to keep in mind. In many cases hackers will play with the urgency or necessity in an email. For example, they are going to tell you that you must do something as soon as possible to solve a supposed error, send data so that your account remains active or carry out any action.
What they are really looking for is that you do not have much time to think, you get nervous and want to solve that problem as soon as possible. If you see that an email plays with urgency and the need to do something, always be wary.
Look for information online
On the other hand, whenever you have doubts and don’t know if a message is really reliable or not, what you can do is search for information on the Internet. A simple Google search can go a long way and prevent you from making the mistake of ignoring an email you received or clicking on a link.
You can also ask that supposed company or person who has contacted you. If, for example, you receive an e-mail indicating that there is a problem with a service you use, you can always ask the company to see if it is true or not. Better that than making mistakes. It is important to protect the email account and a fundamental step is not to have failures.
