How Business Owners Can Spot Phishing Emails

You may have heard about phishing emails. As a business owner, you need to be more wary of them. A phishing email poses a greater danger to you since it could lead to losses and place your customers at risk.

What Is A Phishing Email?

The term ‘phishing’ essentially combines the meanings of two words – password and fishing. Phishing emails (pronounced as fishing) are emails that are sent out with malicious intent. The sender (a.k.a. scammer) uses them to intentionally trick recipients into doing what they want.

But what do they want, exactly? It could be a number of things. A few examples include:

• Getting your account and password information
• Access to your credit/debit card and other payment details
• Acquiring your personal information

Phishing emails are usually designed to get you to click on ‘bad’ links. These links may be infected or lead straight to malicious websites which they use to get information from unsuspecting victims.

The Real Price of Phishing Emails for Businesses

Research shows that business owners receive more phishing emails than the typical online user. Some scammers are known to target businesses for their large funds and customer base. Needless to say, you really have to be more careful. Otherwise, you risk losing money. Mind you, businesses have already lost up to five figures to this scamming strategy.

Phishing emails can also bust open your online security. Your customers’ personal and payment information might be available to phishers. And you might end up losing these customers and the reputation you’ve worked hard to build.

Don’t Be A Victim: 5 Ways To Spot Phishing Emails

Phishing emails are becoming more and more difficult to identify. Scammers are finding better ways to fool business owners. They are designing phishing emails and websites to look as authentic as possible so they can lure potential victims. Identifying them is not impossible, however.

Here is a list of 5 foolproof ways to spot phishing emails.

1. It just doesn’t make sense

You check your inbox and suddenly find an email that makes you stop and wonder… “Why did I get this?” If it just doesn’t make sense or if the offer is too good to be true, then you’re probably looking at a phishing email.

2. Mismatched sender address

Keep in mind that phishing emails are trying to look authentic and will attempt to copy a legitimate company or business. Now carefully inspect the sender of a suspicious email. If the domain has missing letters, or if the sender address contains a string of strange characters, don’t engage.

3. The message is unprofessional

Review the content of the email. If the message has issues with spelling or grammar, the credibility of the sender is questionable. Alternatively, emails requesting personal details and other sensitive information should never be trusted upfront.

4. It has fishy links

Phishing emails tend to have fishy-looking URLs. When you first receive an email, do not click on any link. Instead, use your mouse to hover over it. If it links to a page with a URL that is different from what is advertised, something is definitely up.

5. Contains unexpected attachments

Some scammers will try to infect your computer with malware. They might attach downloadable software and make it appear like a regular document.