Phishing Attacks: Important Safety Tips To Protect Yourself #AAH
These days phishing attacks are becoming very common however, one can protect themselves from these attacks by implementing some safety tips. Phishing is a cybercrime where a person posing as a trusted identity might steal personal information like banking details, credit card details, and password. They might do this to steal your information and get financial benefits out of it. It can also happen over a call and is called Vishing (a portmanteau of voice and phishing).
Internet is a beautiful place to be at even though it exposes us to a world full of scammers and fraudulent activities. If you are not careful enough, you might end up losing your sensitive details as well as hard-earned money. We all have heard of cases where a person in naivety gives away their OTP or passwords to scammers and lose money. To save ourselves from phishing attacks, we need to understand that no means of electronic media is a hundred per cent safe, even though we can take steps to make it a better place for all of us.
How not to fall victim to phishing attacks?
The first rule of staying safe on the internet is to be very careful about the links that you are clicking. Do not share your OTP or passwords with anyone. These scammers create duplicate websites which look very similar to the original ones. The minute you enter your data like credentials and passwords on these sites, they get access and use it for their financial gains. However, if you are careful enough, you can spot grammatical errors or minor differences in the website that may help you differentiate it from the legitimate website. For example, on a banking website, the term ‘user’ can be misspelt as ‘usar’. However, these attackers are getting smarter by the day. These differences might be so minor that they might be unnoticeable to anyone in a hurry.
Always remember, anything that sounds too good to be true probably IS NOT true. We all have received emails with subject lines like ‘urgent, pay attention, your loan is approved, lottery, jackpot, award’, etc. These emails are usually spam and should be sent straightaway to the spam folder. The second rule is to be very careful while opening such emails, especially those you were not expecting to receive.
Prevention is better than cure
Third rule of being safe is that always change your passwords often. Passwords are like a toothbrush – do not share them with anyone and change them regularly.
You must also note that you should not click on random links or pop-up ads because they can steal your sensitive information. The best way to deal with pop-up ads is to have an ad blocker installed on your system. You can also close these ads by clicking the cross on them. Lastly, it is also important that your system has an updated firewall and malware protection software because they go a long way in protecting your devices from such attacks.