Malicious Email Warning Signs

Posted: September 16, 2014

[caption id="attachment_12025" align="alignright" width="300"] Image: PCWorld[/caption] Even with more robust email spam filters, malicious emails can still make their way through to inboxes. It's up to the email user to be diligent when opening email. Spammers are getting more and more creative and it's getting harder to determine what's legitimate and what's not. These 3 tricks will help users make better decisions about opening email and clicking on links. Ian Paul, contributor to PCWorld, helps keep us safe from spam email.

Three warning signs that email is malicious

Email spam filtering is far better than it used to be. There was a time when nearly every scam email would land in your inbox. Thankfully that's not the case anymore—especially if you're a Gmail user. But no system is perfect. Every now and then a scam message will manage to slip into your inbox. But how do you know when you're looking at a scam or not? Here are three basic tip-offs you can look for to figure out whether you're looking at an email with dishonest intentions. They're hardly an exhaustive list, but more often than not one of these tips will save you from getting suckered.

1. Dear customer

One thing spammers are counting on is that you, the target, don't realize there's this ancient technology in Microsoft Word and other apps called mail merge. This feature creates a template that automatically uses a customer list to fill in names, the last four digits of a credit card or bank account number, and other personal information. That means when I receive an email from my bank, I expect it to say "Dear Ian" or "Dear Ian Paul," but certainly not "Dear Customer" or "Dear ," or, worse, no salutation whatsoever. If you see an email addressed to "Dear customer" that asks you to follow a link to fill in your account details, chances are it's a phishing scam. That's not to say that you should automatically trust any email specifically addressed to you. But you can be sure that if you get an email from a company you do business with like a major bank, retailer, or technology company, they will address you by name in any email. 

Read the entire article, Three Warning Signs That Email is Malicious, at PCWorld.