Working from home requires actively working together with your colleagues against cyber threats to protect your IT infrastructure and data. For example, phishing e-mails can be recognised as follows: The message is seeking to create a feeling of urgency and elicit a quick reaction in the reader. It may tell you should perform a certain action now in order to...
- avoid negative consequences such as access to your e-mail account being blocked
- receive a benefit such as a financial reward
- get you to view something exciting or forbidden
The majority of these messages contain at least two of the following typical phishing features:
- The sender’s name is different from the e-mail address the message was sent from
- The sender purports to be an employee of a legitimate company but the e-mail address has no connection to this company
- The message doesn’t feature any branding, such as the absence of a company logo or e-mail signature
- The message refers to departments or services that don’t exist
- Unusual words, atypical syntax or phrasing is used, and the message contains basic spelling or grammar errors
- Links to registration sites are included
- The message includes an attachment with a generic name
Of course, these tips don’t just apply to your e-mail account, but also to social media communications channels such as WhatsApp, LinkedIn and XING.