Phishing describes a set of activities in which a cyber criminal attempts to get you to divulge sensitive personal information through various forms of deception. Once obtained, the hacker will use or sell your information to enrich themselves or use it to bolster more advanced scamming strategies.
Thankfully, phishing scams and their most popular variations can be recognized and prevented with knowledge and awareness.
There are things you can do in your daily online activities to help prevent yourself from being phished, including:
• Taking a moment to examine the email or message for any misspellings or the lack of a business greeting
• Ensuring that your smartphone, PC, tablet, or other electronic devices are setup for automatic security updates
• Purchasing robust antivirus and anti-phishing software for protecting valuable data
• Using multi-factor authentication wherever possible to reduce the likelihood of your accounts being compromised
• Creating backups of your data using external hard drives or cloud computing services
• Never sending information like your credit card number or Social Security card via email or text
• Not clicking on suspicious links or opening attachments on unexpected emails, and using spam filters
