Email Scams – Where Hackers and Harasser Collide
With the increase in the progress and massive evolution of technology, we all have accepted the use of the internet for almost any chore that anyone has to offer. We use the internet to search for places, find maps, meet new friends, and share different experiences. Every person in this world has received some email stating that they have won a lottery or their documents have been deactivated. They have to pay a certain amount to activate them and many more statements that eventually end up asking for money. These malicious emails are the first step of email scams by hacker to aim their target and scam the victim. Email scams usually consist of unsolicited messages claiming for some amount of monetary fund. They can give a various number of reason to fool the victim and convince them in paying huge amount of money either by threatening them or make them pay some amount by targeting the audience greedy to earn more money and end up losing a considerable amount.
How do these Email Scams Work? Fraudsters try contacting the targeted victim by pretending that they belong from a genuine organization that the victim either deals with or is related with, creating trust and moving a step ahead in fooling the victim. These scammers use every medium to contact the victim, either through email, text, phone call, or postal letter. Usually, these hackers try to gain more information by asking for their personal details. They generally, fool the victim by sending a generic email from an authentic looking organization, for example, they spoof the email by attaching the original logo and watermarks from the legitimate website. The victim falls for the bait thinking the problem is real and gets scammed immediately. Alternatively, the hacker can also send an email with an attached malicious link that takes the victim to a new fraudulent website that sends malware and ransomware directly to their system
harming their processor ultimately. They try to break into the personal files of the victim and steal their personal information and online identity. Whenever a person receives an email, the first step he or she needs take is to confirm the person or the organization who has sent the email is recognizable or not. Always reply to the people whom you deal with and never entertain any email if you are not sure about the sender.
Red Flags to Identify Email Scams Concentrate on the Salutation Always remember to check the salutation or greeting the email begins with. If you notice a generic address like ‘dear customer’ or ‘dear account holder’ please be alert, the email has a huge chance that a scammer sends it.
Sent By an Individual If you find emails sent from a personal email address rather than from an authentic email address with the organization’s domain name. For example, if the sender’s email address begins like johnsmithrocker@mountaiworld.com strongly implies that the email is a scam.
Grammatical Errors Always read documents related to emails carefully. If you find any grammatical mistakes or weird looking sentences that do not make any sense proves the email is a scam and should be deleted immediately. Since most people scan the email by just going through it in a go, grammatical errors to get unnoticed.
Unknown Organization There are incidences where the victim receives an email claiming to extract money from an organization the victim does not even deal. The recipient never even attempted to make an account on the particular site and yet has received an email asking for free to subscribe to the services.
Blackmail Email Generally, the recipients receive an email blackmailing them to pay them a particular amount as they have been caught visiting a pornography site. Such hackers usually threaten the victim that they have recorded their activity. And will share it online if the victim does not agree to pay the fee.
Various Types of Email Scams Advance-Fee Scam This type of fraud generally include the Nigerian scams where the scammer asks for some advance-fee for the services like antivirus software, recreating an account on a particular site or any tech-related work. They usually take the money and disappear either without giving them the service or give them a fraudulent service. That leads to more data breaches and loss of information.
FBI Email Scam These emails are sent by hackers who claim to be a part of FBI’s anti-terrorist squad generally based in parts of Nigeria. The emails mostly try to convince the victim for a confirmed inheritance or the email states that the victim has won a massive amount in a lottery and has to pay a small amount to claim the money. These emails also include information of the victims and aims to inform the victim about getting nominated as a beneficiary of millions of dollars.
Online Dating Scams Under this kind of fraud, the hacker tries to lure the victim by getting involved with them on a personal level. They try to win the trust by making good relations with the victim. And then after gaining their faith, they start their game of scamming the person either little-by-little or all at once. The scammers usually target the victim on a dating site, and perpetually suggests them to connect on a different platform. This helps them in gaining more information about the victim and also keeps them from getting blocked or reported from the dating application.
A Job Scam This kind of fraud usually takes place when the targeted audience or individual is searching for a job opportunity. The hacker sends a legitimate-looking email to the job seeker that includes a malicious link that takes the victim to a page. That either attacks their system or steals their online identity. Above are a few variations an email hacker uses to scam their targeted audience. Always remember to use the best antivirus software like XA Secuflex to keep your system safe from various malware attacks. To protect your personal information and online identities remember to use privacy protection software like XA Troop. Keep your data safe and secured.