How can your employees recognise scam emails?

Unfortunately, fraudulent emails are something that we are all likely to come across at some point.

In fact, the methods that fraudsters are using to target people have seen a substantial increase in recent years.

It is important to be aware that your business could fall victim to a scam, with the potential of scammers even going to the effort to pose as your business in order to trick employees into revealing personal information especially their email account passwords.

According to new research from OpenText Solution (a cyber security firm), on average, businesses have been targeted 28 times by cyber threats over the past year.

The research also revealed the worrying information that 42 per cent of UK employees are unable to identify fraudulent emails that appear to be from the Royal Mail.

With this rising number of threats, if staff do not have sufficient training on recognising scam emails, the security of your business’ data can be put at serious risk.

Top tips for recognising scams

Alongside having the relevant training on cyber security threats and how to respond to them, it may be useful to remind individuals how to recognise generic scams.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has offered some valuable advice on what to be wary of, including:

• An unknown sender requesting personal information (such as bank details, account passwords)
• Correspondence demanding you to transfer money or enter card details or respond urgently
• Unexpected messages offering a refund, tax rebate, or grant – something that sounds too good to be true usually is!

It is imperative to be vigilant when it comes to virtual correspondence.

• It may be possible to recognise a scam from company names being misspelt, use of public email addresses such as unusualdomainname@gmail.com and differences in logos. Legitimate companies address you by your name and use proper English and don’t ask for passwords.
• A scam email can be on any topic and contain links that will redirect you to a site requiring you to enter account details and passwords, or that may contain malware.

If you need help organising Cyber Security in your business contact Paul Holborow at RMT Technology on 0191 256 9550 or email paul.holborow@rmttechnology.co.uk.