Spotting the scammers

The fraudster will use this technique to get their target to act quickly to overlook the warning signs of a scam. Always be wary of any message that asks for your personal information or to click a link or attachment.?

It may seem obvious to be cautious when receiving a message of this nature, but cybercriminals are proving to become smarter in their methods.

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Most will be familiar with the recent smishing scams that have been circulating. One of the latest text scams includes the?Apple Pay text message scam, where the fraudsters are sending out text messages in mass to the public warning them that their Apple Pay has been suspended.?

A recipient who relies on their Apple Pay throughout their day would be likely to click the link and share their details to solve this issue because of how urgent it is to them to be able to use their Apple Pay.??

Although this scam doesn’t explicitly use urgent language, instead the action that needs to be taken by the target would be?urgent if the scam was real. This makes it harder for the general public to easily identify this fraudulent technique of using urgency as it isn’t explicitly used in the attacker's language.?

The fraudsters' use of?familiarity?by mimicking widely trusted Apple is also another method of bait to be aware of when spotting a scam.?

It is a perfect example of how in today’s world, any message that we receive digitally today must be treated with extreme caution.

More ways of spotting something ‘phishy’

Using a generic number

In the case of the Apple Pay scam, the clue to spotting the scam is mostly in the fact that the?message is from a generic number.?Legitimate companies will not text you from a generic number?and are unlikely to ask for financial or personal details out of the blue.

Using a generic email domain

Ensure that the email is using a legitimate domain name. A legitimate brand will never send you an email from a generic domain such as @gmail. A brand such as Apple will also never send you an email using a domain such as @apple.clients.org, it would simply be addressed from @apple.?

For emails, it’s also important to be weary when receiving an email from someone new or an infrequent sender. Although this isn’t out of the ordinary to receive an email for the first time, especially if they are outside of your organisation it is wise to proceed with caution.

Spelling and bad grammar

Authoritative and professional bodies will usually have editorial staff in place to ensure that there are no grammatical errors in their communications. If an email or text message has an obvious spelling or grammatical error, it is likely to be a scam. This is often because of poor translation from the scammer's native language to English.

Non-personalised message

For both emails and text scams, often the criminals will send the same message to millions of people. Therefore, if the email isn’t addressed directly to you, this could be a sign of a scam email or text.

Test your users

To learn how phish prone your employees are,?sign up for your free phishing test today.?