Phishing attacks via email and social media are ballooning. Ken Colburn, of the Data Doctors, explains what to look for and how to protect yourself.
Q: Are there any resources to help me teach my elderly parents how to spot phishing emails?
A: Despite all the sophisticated methods used to prevent hackers from breaking into our personal accounts, they can all be bypassed if they can trick you into giving up sensitive information yourself.
Far and away, the method of choice for compromising users is through sophisticated phishing messages in email, via text messaging and through social media accounts.
An international coalition known as the observed 1,097,811 phishing attacks in the second quarter of 2022 — the most they’ve ever seen.
Social media threats grew at the fastest rate, with a nearly 50% increase from the first to second quarter of 2022.
This trend is expected to grow because of the simplicity of launching widespread phishing attacks — and frankly, because it works so well.
Learning how to spot the obvious signs that something is “phishy” is a skill that everyone should work to develop as the sophistication level continues to increase.
Common signs of phishing
Just about everyone knows that a file attachment in an email message should be considered suspicious, but scammers have resorted to tricks that overcome this suspicion.
A corporate logo, a sense of urgency…
