BMN Blog

Unfortunately, significant events like the COVID-19 pandemic typically lead to a rise in phishing attacks that leverage the ongoing situation to fool people into providing confidential information or downloading malicious software. Now is a good time to remember a few key characteristics of phishing attacks to help prevent being a victim of a phishing attack.

• Pay close attention to the sender's email address. Many times a phishing attack will at first glance appear to be from a reputable source, but upon further inspection the address is designed to look similar to a valid sender's email.   
• Be wary of any hyperlinks within e-mails. Be sure to hover over any links to external websites and always ask for assistance from your IT Support Provider if you're unsure of the validity of any website.
• Don't download any attachments from unknown senders. Try to identify ways to share information securely without having to use e-mail attachments (consider encrypted e-mail technologies or secure third-party services such as ShareFile).
• Look for grammatical errors or misspellings.  If you notice problems with the way the message is worded, such as incorrect or inconsistent tense, there is a high likelihood the email is malicious in nature.

Above all, now is the time to heighten your awareness and trust your gut. If you have any doubts about a message, ask a professional to help you discern its authenticity. Finally, if you're not already enrolled in a security awareness training service that includes simulated phishing, now would be a great time to implement such a program. 

Nic Cofield is the Director of Client Services at Jackson Thornton Technologies. He can be reached at ncofield@jttconnect.com