Learn How to Spot the Email Phishing Scams
December 24, 2023 - Orange County Sheriff's Department officials report that email phishing scams remain one of the easiest and most convenient ways for hackers to steal your information and possibly commit fraud. It is important to be diligent when receiving emails from someone you don’t know.
Here’s how to spot phishing email scam red flags:
Subject line: Any subject line conveying urgency is often a red flag.
The “from” field: The email address appears odd, has misspellings or strange characters.
Time of day: Emails sent outside business hours should spark skepticism.
Body of the email: Note if there are misspelled words or strange sentence structure. Conveying a sense of urgency in the body of the email also is a tactic hackers use.
Link: If any of these red flags appear in the email, do not click on the link. If the link itself looks suspicious, do not click on it. Suspicion links often have misspelled words, strange characters, or dashes. To check the safety of a link, copy it and paste it into a URL checker, such as the Google Transparency Report.
Source: Orange County Sheriff's Department
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