6 Quick Ways To Spot Spam Email-This post will aware you about the best practices to quickly spot any spam email in mailbox.
Every day, we receive lots of mails to our inbox, may be some important ones, promotional, and spam. It is worth saying that, phishing is one of the most common ways through which people are getting scammed.
Not only that, the emails from unknown sender contains links, attachments and zipped files that may contain compromised codes to spread viruses like ransomware.
6 Quick Ways To Spot Spam Email
In our daily lives, we are too busy to check the legitimacy of the mails and just seeing their catchy subject lines, we open them. This can have various consequences like:
- Fake job opportunities asking to pay some money;
- Compromised documents that appear healthy, but contains malicious payloads to drop any serious threat;
- Fraud invoices, fax and shipments that try to mislead people;
- Scams to win some prizes or rewards or surveys that redirect to fake websites asking for private information;
And the list goes on…
So, here we lists 6 Quick Ways To Spot Spam Email through which you can spot a spam email and avoid scams.
List 6 Quick Ways To Spot Spam Email
- Give a closer look to the subject of the email: Most of the mails comes with a subject line that shows the motive of the email. For example : “Survey,” “Make money fast,” “job opportunity,” “Invoice” and so on. Such type of emails may contain some virus or scam links.
- Be cautious while opening any attached files: Unless you are expecting any email with an attachment with known sender. Watch for the attachment before downloading it such as .exe or .vbs file extension. Such type of extension may contain malicious payloads for the virus. If the attachment file is any MS office files, then it may ask you to enable macros to run the script. But do not do so, unless the source is verified. A recent Phishing Campaign Distributes Quasar RAT Via Fake Resumes.
- Verify the sender before responding: If the sender of the mail is unfamiliar to you, then it may be a spam or contain harmful link. Don’t be in a hurry in response to such emails. If the mail does not concern you, then better move them to spam folder.
- Go Through The Message Body. Cyber-criminals shoots-out spam emails in bulk, pretending to be some important company or employee. The mail may seem important but actually can be sent by any hacker. This is known as forging or spoofing email. Sometimes even email can be from your friend from social media or family in contact, that contains a link to watch any video, download applications or simply says to download the document. It can be the case that, the sender is already been infected and its contact is being used to spread spam. This can be a sign of spam email. In such case, do not open such attachment and do inform the sender about the same.
- Check For Grammatical errors or Spelling mistakes: Spam emails may not have a relevant subject line and also the message body does not have any useful or complete information. They just ask user download the attachment or visit the link for more information. Sometimes, the message body have some text with spelling and grammatical mistakes like punctuation marks and so. Such emails can indicate a spam one.
- Do not click on links unless verified: Sometimes the emails are sent from YouTube, gaming site or some even unknown websites. They appear as promotional emails, but hackers may have some compromised links embedded within. When clicked by the user may redirect to hacked websites. The payloads of the virus can silently download within the background. So before clicking on the link you should verify if the link is safe to click or not.
Apart from all these, you should avoid email that claims for big rewards, download free software programs and surveys. A little cautiousness can avoid a great damage and secure your online privacy. Also spread these words of caution to your friends and family. This will surely help you to stay alert against spam emails.
I am sure you have liked our list of 6 Quick Ways To Spot Spam Email, please write to us in comments. If you have received any spam email and how you spotted it.
