Phishing is an email scam that pretend itself to be from genuine sources like Gmail ,Paypal and bank houses , to cheat the user and take away his account informations. Phishing mails usually includes a link that looks exactly as the web site from they are claiming to be from .Here is few tips by which you can identify and differentiate phishing mails in your inbox .
1.Find out phishing emails using Iconix :
Iconix is free software that attaches a safe sign on emails that are from original sources ,provided the service is already in their database . Paypal ,Ebay ,Visa etc . are already in their database . And when you receive emails from these trusted sources , you will see icons attached as shown below .
Download Iconix
2.Identify phishing mails :Check incoming email address .
Emails from original sources will be in proper format . That is , an email from Paypal will be something like support@paypal.com . And the phishing email cannot mimic this .
3.Check for SSL security :
Email services and payment gateways uses SSL security to encrypt password and user information . You will see a lock icon near the URL box and progression bar . Phishing email links will not have SSL security . So be careful while logging into your email , Paypal or back accounts .
4.Find out the location and other details of email sender:
You can track the location and other details of email sender , from the email itself . Read this article find out the location of an email . So whenever you are asked to verify your Gmail account , just check out the email location . If its from Mountain view CA , probably its a genuine mail .
5.Don’t panic :
I usually receive emails claiming to be from Gmail team . They will ask to verify our accounts by filling user name and password . And a note attached : verify your email within 30m minutes after opening this email !. So normally people would rush to the phishing link and submit their account account information . So my advice is not to panic . Identify each aspects and analyze the mail , if its something related with sensitive informations.
Do you have any other tips to identify phishing mails ?? Share them here >>