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10 Tips from the Best Practices for Phishing Prevention Guide

We all know what a difference digital technology has made to our business and personal lives. In fact, many of us spend hours a day online for both work and leisure reasons. We do everything online from the business accounts and marketing through to communicating with friends and family, accessing entertainment, and even doing the weekly shopping.

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While there are undoubtedly many wonderful benefits that have come with digital technology. However, you also have to look at the problems that have been created by that same technology. This includes issues such as online fraud, identity theft, and scams like phishing, all of which have become very common. This is why you need to educate yourself and learn about best practices when it comes to protecting yourself.

How to Prevent Against Phishing and Spoofing: Top Tips

It is important to familiarize yourself with how to protect against problems such as phishing and spoofing, as these can cause huge problems if you fall victim to the scams. So, here are ten simple phishing prevention best practices tips that can help you:

1. Email links: Make sure you do not click on links that are in random emails and pop-ups, as these could take you to a false website. You may even believe the website is bona fide, such as your bank or PayPal account, but it may be a very clever fake site designed to obtain your details. Instead, always use your browser to go onto the sites.

2. Training: You need to make sure you train your employees or other members of your household about the dangers of these scams. This will stop them from clicking on links in emails that could be phishing scams.

3. Stopping threats: You can also reduce the risk of falling victim to this sort of activity by stopped the emails before they even reach the inboxes of employees. You can do this by buffering the emails with the use of a cloud-based email service.

4. Spoofing protection: It is important that you have spoofing protection for your domain name on top of phishing protection for incoming emails, as this will prove vital in terms protecting your reputation.

5. Use the right technology: You can get anti-phishing technology to protect yourself and your system these days. You should find a suitable one that not only checks embedded email links but also carries out checks/provides notifications in real time. Protection should be for all of your devices not just your computer.

6. Stay up to date: It is important to remember that technology changes on a continual basis, and this means that scammers also change their tactics. With this in mind, you should stay up to date with how these scams operate.

7. Make sure your browser is up to date: It is important to ensure your browser is always up to date, as this will then ensure that any anti-phishing software toolbars used with the browser are also up to date.

8. Don’t be tempted by pop-up windows: You also need to be wary of pop-up windows, which sometimes may appear to be part of a website. In many cases, they are simply attempts at phishing, so don’t just automatically click on them.

9. Make sure you use good anti-virus software: It is important to ensure that you have good anti-virus software in place to protect not only against phishing attacks but also other malicious attacks.

10. Don’t be fooled by email content: Phishing emails are designed to deceive, and the content could be anything from asking you to update your bank account details to telling you that you’ve won a huge amount of cash. Never simply click on a link because the email tells you to – always use your browser to access important sites like bank and other accounts.

All of these phishing prevention tips can prove invaluable. With phishing attack prevention being vital these days, it is important to familiarize yourself with these preventing phishing attacks best practices.

How Can You Identify a Phishing Email?

Many phishing emails will contain the same sort of content, which includes a link to the site they want you to click on and content that asks you to do something such as update your details or provide your details. However, you may notice that there is a slight difference in terms of the sender’s address compared to the real company. You may also find that there are many errors within the body of the email such as spelling and grammatical errors. To be on the safe side, never click on the link in any random email or pop-up. Simply use your browser to access the site to ensure it is the real deal and not a fake site.

Check the comment section for additional information, or share what you know or ask a question about this article, by clicking the 'View or Write Comment' button below.

Note: Some of the information in samples on this website may have been impersonated or spoofed.

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