Avoid phishing with these simple tips.

Don’t Take the Bait

Phishing occurs when criminals try to get us to open harmful links, emails or attachments that could request our personal information or infect our devices.

Phishing messages or “bait” usually come in the form of an email, text, direct message on social media or phone call. These messages are often designed to look like they come from a trusted person or organization, to get us to respond.

These con artists can approach you by phone, email, text or social media. Here are some of their usual tricks:

• Claim to be a friend or family member in trouble
• Pretend to be a company threatening to shut down an account or service
• Pretend to be a company with a great discount offer or verifying account information
• Claim to be a collection agent working on behalf of a government agency or company

Stay Safe with Three Simple Tips

1. Recognize

Look for these common signs:

• Urgent or emotionally appealing language, especially messages that claim dire consequences for not responding immediately
• Requests to send personal and financial information
• Untrusted shortened URLs
• Incorrect email addresses or links, like amazan.com

A common sign used to be poor grammar or misspellings although in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) some emails will now have perfect grammar and spelling, so look out for the other signs.

2. Resist

If you suspect phishing, resist the temptation to click on links or attachments that seem too good to be true and may be trying to access your personal information. Instead, report the phish to protect yourself and others. Typically, you’ll find options to report near the person’s email address or username. You can also report via the “report spam” button in the toolbar or settings.

• Recognize emotionally appealing language, especially those that claim dire consequences for not responding immediately.
• If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Resist the temptation to click on links or attachments. Report spam to protect yourself and others.
• Delete messages. Do not reply or click any links, including any “unsubscribe” links.

3. Delete

Delete the message. Don’t reply or click on any attachment or link, including any “unsubscribe” link. Just delete.

If a message looks suspicious, it’s probably phishing. 

However, if you think it could be real, don’t click on any link or call any number in the message. Look up another way to contact the company or person directly:

• Go to the company’s website and capture their contact information from the verified website. Search for the site in your web browser or type the address yourself if you’re sure you know it.
• Use another way to reach the person to confirm whether they contacted you. For example, if you get a strange message from your friend on Facebook, and you have their phone number, text or call them to ask if they sent the message.

Other Ways We Can Protect Ourselves Online

Online criminals look for easy targets, like people who don’t take basic precautions. If we take the following steps, we won’t be as vulnerable to their deceptive tactics. It will be much harder to scam us or steal our information.

Use Strong Passwords

Using strong passwords and a password manager are some easy ways to protect ourselves from someone logging into an account and stealing data or money.

Turn on MFA

Multifactor authentication means using more than a password to access an app or account. With MFA, we might be asked to enter a text code or use a fingerprint. It alerts us and prevents others from accessing our accounts.

Update Software

Don’t delay software updates. Flaws in software can give criminals access to files or accounts. Programmers fix these flaws as soon as they can, but we must install updates for the latest protection!

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IN GOD WE TRUST

Thanks for supporting independent true journalism with a small tip. Dodie & Jack

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Dodie & Jack Dennis are regular customers of Green Pasture. Highly recommended.

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