As those of us working from home have exponentially increased over the last year, so have the number of sophisticated scams aiming to rip us off, cause malicious damage to our computers or merely inconvenience us.
Whilst April Fools might be around the corner, the security of your IT system is no joke. So today we wanted to highlight a few common scams doing the rounds and give you a few top tips on staying safe from them. Let’s jump in.
This is a very common style of scam, where fraudsters take on the persona of someone trustworthy in the attempt to get you to hand over information or click a malicious link in an email, social media or messaging app like WhatsApp. They are most commonly known through email, but it is important to note that cybercriminals are expanding the approach they take.
The best way to spot Phishing is to take time reviewing an email or message – be aware of inconsistencies, misspelled names and poor grammar. If you’re unsure about a link, hover your mouse cursor over it. In the bottom left-hand corner, you’ll see the full URL – and know if they’re sending you to a real or scam website.
If you’re browsing the web and all of a sudden you get a pop-up saying that your computer is now infected, chances are it’s an online scam. Fake antivirus software pop-ups or ads want you to download the software which will only give you a virus, malware or ransomware.
Only trust virus information from your antivirus – and if you aren’t using one, now would be a good time to start. A real antivirus solution will be active in the background as your carry out your day-to-day work. It will likely only notify you once the cyberthreat has been resolved.
More and more of us are shopping online, but this has not escaped the notice of the scammers. Thousands of websites have popped up that look like the real deal, and seem to have offers that are too good to be true. And it’s right, those offers are too good to be true – because the sites have been set up to dupe you.
With sharp eyes, they can be spotted. They often have similar but not identical URLs to the brand they’re trying to imitate, and are also likely to have spelling errors (much like phishing messages) and prices that aren’t comparable to other websites. It is more likely they will ship you a fake item, or nothing at all.
Hopefully, this has given you the confidence to spot suspicious activity, but if you think that you need to boost some of the IT security in your business learn more about how we can help you here or contact us today.
