What is a fake (phishing) email?
A fake email is an email that usually looks like it’s from a legitimate company but needless to say it isn’t. The email is made to look completely official and is usually designed in an encouraging way to get you to update your personal, account or payment details.
Why do these fake emails exist?
Someone somewhere once realised that if they send out a lot of emails to millions of email addresses then there will inevitably be a fair few people that read the email. The email will look like it’s from a legitimate organisation and will request the person to update information for one reason or another. A prime example is that there are emails that initially look like they are from PayPal. The emails have the PayPal logo in them and even their contact details.
How to detect a fake email
Detecting a fake email can be difficult – that is if you don’t know what to look for. I’m sure most of us, if not all of us, have received a fake email at some point. But how do you know? What are the tell tale signs of a fake email? And why do they exist?
Fake emails are more than an annoyance. They are either designed to infect your device (laptop/tablet etc) or worse, to extract information from you. All too many times I have come across people who have clicked on a link in an email to ‘update’ their account or payment details.
I have comprised a list below of the top tips to detecting a fake email.
- The email is not addressed to you
- The email is from a company you have never heard from
- The email contains an attachment
- There are links in the email
- The email requests you to confirm your account details
- The ‘from’ address on the email is incorrect
- The email contains poor spelling & grammar
- It just doesn’t look right!
The email is not addressed to you
Very often the fake emails don’t address you personally, instead they might say something like ‘Dear Customer’ or ‘Dear Sir’.
The email is from a company you have never heard from
If you have never heard of the company who have sent you the email, or you are not expecting the email, then it’s best to ignore it, especially if the email has an attachment on it or it requests you to click on the link to update your details.
The email contains an attachment
Very often, an email can contain an attachment that is designed to cause your computer a fair bit of hassle! Unless you know exactly what the attachment is and you are expecting it, I would not click on the attachment.
There are links in the email
Don’t click on email links!! If a company wants you to review your account, update details etc then if you know who are the company then it is always best to go their website directly to see what you need to do. I can not stress how important it is to not click on links to update your details. Legitimate companies will never ask you to do this.
The email requests you to confirm your account details
Getting you to update your account details is a way for people to get your details – by getting you to give it to them! don’t fall for it. Instead, always go to the real website yourself or contact the company directly, don’t click on links in emails to update your emails.
The ‘from’ address on the email is incorrect
Be sure to inspect the ‘from’ address on the email. Fake emails will often come from people who are pretending to be a legitimate company. As such, the email addresses may look real at first glance but upon closer inspection, the email may be from a fake email address eg instead of being from info@kixwix.co.nz (which is our official address), the email could be info@kixwixuk.co.nz or info@123kixwix.co.nz. You get the idea. Again, to be sure, if the company is requesting you to do something then contact them directly.
The email contains poor spelling & grammar
This one says it on the tin really! If the email is from a legitimate company then they will take good care to to ensure that spelling and grammar is as it should be.
It just doesn’t look right!
Finally, if an email just doesn’t look right then it probably isn’t. Again, if the email is requesting you do something then visit the website or contact the company directly.