Email Phishing Attacks

Phishing:
What is an Email Phishing Attack?

An email phishing attack is when the attacker sends out an email designed to bait you in to acting on it. Acting on this email could take the form of clicking on an attachment, a link within the email or paying money via bitcoin or some other untraceable means.
A fisherman goes to a body of water, throws in baited hook at end of a line and waits to see if he catches a fish. Similarly, the attacker is going fishing (phishing). They are throwing a baited hook (email) in the water (sent to random email addresses) to see what they can catch (get you to fall for their scheme).

What does this look like?

It can take many forms. It may be an email saying your package could not be delivered with an attachment that is meant for you to click on. Often this attachment will contain a virus or launch a ransomware attack. Another could be a purchase conformation email for a purchase you know you did not make and comes with an attachment. The curiosity will surely temp you to click on the attachment right away to see what this is all about. It can also take the form of a blackmail attempt. The email will claim that the sender has extremely damaging information about you and that if you do not pay what it demands this information will come out.
The phishing scam artists are picking up their game and getting increasingly creative and so should you. You should be even more skeptical before clicking on an attachment, paying money, or revealing sensitive information to the sender.

Clues to look for before you act:

Senders email address – this is sometimes a dead giveaway. If you have an email supposedly coming from a big corporation and the sending email is a gmail address, you can be sure it is not legit. Sometimes the corporation might be in the email, but it is not the correct domain. (i.e. “Microsoft_billing@yahoo.com”)
Wanting money – The email will suggest that you pay a large sum of money to a bitcoin account or an untraceable place
Wanting sensitive / personal information – you will come across scams that want you to ‘’verify” your information and they want you to give sensitive information such as your social security number, a bank account number or password.
Do some independent investigation – if you get email that seems to be from a legit source. Go check on this source independently of the email and see if the email is legit. For example, if an email is supposed to be from your bank, call your bank with a number that you know to be valid or go to your bank and check to see if the email is legit or not.