Spam and spoof emails are very common at this point. Microsoft and 3rd party spam utilities put in their best effort to stay on top of new threats as they arise, but new threats come out every day! We all see them – and some are more obvious than others. Here’s a refresher on best practices for handling these emails.

Spoofing: Spoofs are emails coming from addresses that aren’t what they appear to be. So, an email may look like it’s coming from your boss or another member of your office, but it really isn’t. Spoof emails can also come from senders outside of your office that look like a vendor you know, but something is usually off.

Spam: Spam emails come in many forms, most frequently in recent times as a threatening message that says something like this:

As a quick refresher, here are some other email security best practices:

  1. Always check the actual email sender address – If it seems suspicious, delete it
  2. Check the sender’s email signature. If it’s someone you know, is there any inconsistencies from previous messages (different phone numbers, links, etc. that aren’t normally present)
  3. Never click a link in an email that looks suspicious. You can hover your mouse over the link itself and see where it will really be taking you. If it isn’t legitimate, then delete the message.
  4. Never open attachments you aren’t expecting whether you know a sender or not – they may be malicious.
  5. Don’t be fooled by scare tactics (Example: Your account is suspended, You’ve been hacked!)
  6. Let us check it out! If you aren’t sure whether a message is legitimate or not, please send it in to us at support@azbs.com or call 312-474-9400. AZBS is always here to confirm what’s good from bad.

Unfortunately, state of the art tools catch a LOT of malicious threats, but no one’s able to prevent everything. Fortunately, if everyone remains vigilant and follows these practices, we can all work together to keep our personal and company data safe.

Does your office have an hour to spare to help protect your company? If so, contact us today to schedule your email and web security training! The return on your investment will be invaluable.