Phishing: what to watch out for!

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Online communication, as well as various means of connecting on the Internet, are more than necessary. It is difficult to communicate and work without having to conduct online correspondence. Unfortunately, the increased presence of the web means that you can fall victim to financial fraud. Therefore, today we suggest you which signals can distinguish a phishing attack among the many emails or messages you receive every day.

What is Phishing?

Phishing is a method of deception by which you inadvertently provide personal information (access to bank accounts, various accounts, personal data, social network profiles, etc.) to an unauthorized source, which is subsequently used against you.

Consequences can be different, but usually lead to financial trouble – drained bank accounts, stolen identity, etc.

But what distinguishes a normal message or email from a phishing one?

Let’s take a look:


• Sender Name and Source. Carefully check who is sending the email or message!
In most cases, phishing emails imitate wellknown and proven brands that you trust. They may contain the exact colors, names, logos that are taken from real sites. They may also contain information that specifically applies to you. It is important to always check the source.

In phishing emails, there is often a mismatch between the sender’s domain and the domain in the web page link from the message. This is one of the surest methods that will show you how much to trust the information that is sent to you.

• Spelling mistakes and weird grammar.

An official institution would never allow itself to communicate with its customers with spelling errors.
However, phishing emails are not very good at grammar and spelling. Most often, this is due to automatic translation by Google and is a sure sign that the email you are reading is not directed specifically at you, but has probably reached the inbox of hundreds of other people. If the text seems strange to you, and the tone more than confusing – trust your intuition and just delete it.

Threats and sense of urgency.

Almost every phishing email has this distinguishing feature – it creates a sense of urgency and urgency. This can become clear to you already from the “about” field. It often contains expressions such as “blocked account“, “immediate payment“, “suspicious activity” and others.

The more emotional such a message is written and the more urgent action it urges, the greater the likelihood that it will succeed in deceiving its victims. People have the ability to not think long about their decisions if they are put under pressure, so it is important to always calmly consider your actions.

Too good offers.

Contrary to the previous point, phishing emails often contain offers that are simply too good to be true. And that’s the key element – logically speaking, they just can’t be real. Remember the old maxim “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t”!

For example, many claim that you win an iPhone, a lottery, or some other big prize. Here again the element of urgency applies – “click this link in the next 5 minutes to claim your prize!” Just don’t trust or click on such emails.

• Suspicious links and attachments.

If you have even the slightest doubt that an email is phishing, do not click on any links or attachments.

If you hover over the link without clicking, you will be able to see if the address matches the sender. Endless strings of numbers and letters are an obvious red flag and should be avoided at all costs. As a joke, note that most secure sites contain Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and start with “https”.


• Requirement to share personal information.

It is important to familiarize yourself with which institutions would require your personal information. In most cases, banking institutions, various streaming platforms, Google, and large online corporations will never contact you via email, SMS, Viber, or Facebook Messenger to request your personal data. This should make you carefully read everything when you receive such a message from such a company.

To summarize: don’t trust easily, check the sources, don’t give out your personal information and don’t click on suspicious links and attachments. And most importantly, follow your intuition! If you follow these few steps, your stay in the online space would be much safer and more fruitful. And we at Lead Consult wish you a pleasant browsing!

The Lead Consult team offers you professional services and consultation. Please contact us at:

☎ phone + 3598 888 33 600
✉ email: office@leadconsult-bg.com

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