Sophisticated e-mail scams are potential disasters for internet commerce
Scams:
As scammers will try to reach out to as many potential victims as possible,
they will typically spam and hence, you have to guard your email address and
exercise caution when acting on such scam emails.
How to guard your email address?
Treat it the way you treat your telephone number: don't give it away easily, don't publicise in
public places like websites or chat rooms. In addition, you can also set up different email
addresses for different purposes: use one or two for more public purposes such as subscribing
to newsletters or registering at online stores. Also, keep one that you only reveal to family
and close friends.
Furthermore, you should always exercise caution when dealing with emails. Malicious actors often send
emails in the name of your friends or colleagues. They also try to bait you with convincing stories
or juicy contents to fool you into giving information. For example, you may be tricked into opening
email attachments that contain viruses. If not, you may be asked to click on links in emails that
send you to hacker websites or banking website look-alikes. Be alert at all times and do not succumb
to greed. More often than not, what appears too-good-to-be-true is probably out for your money.
Before
Before acting on emails, you can always apply the KRESV test:
K now: Do I know the sender?
R eceived: Have I received email from this sender before?
E xpect: Am I expecting email from this sender?
S ense: Is this email something that I expect from this sender?
V irus scan: What will my anti-virus software say about this email?
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