How can you report a phishing attempt?

Most people don’t know how to recognize phishing emails or where to report them if they do. Here is how to identify phishing attempts and where you should report them.

Characteristics of phishing attempts

Recognizing deceptive email content

• Request login credentials or other sensitive data
• Contain suspicious attachments
• Contain bad spelling or grammar
• Demands urgent action
• Inconsistent email addresses or links

Identifying phishing websites

Phishing websites pretend to look like legitimate websites to trick you into giving your personal information. You can often spot these by hovering over the website link before clicking on it in an email.

Social engineering techniques in phishing

Social engineering phishing techniques pretend to be from a friend, coworker, or family member. They often can be spotted by their use of unusual greetings.

Reporting phishing attempts

Reporting to your email provider

Some people are afraid that reporting spam to their email provider affects their spam score or blacklists them globally, but it usually just notifies the organization’s administrator.

Reporting to IT department or cybersecurity team

Reporting to your IT department or cybersecurity team is important so they can blacklist within your organization any email addresses or links in the phishing email. Your phishing email can also be used to help train other employees on what to look out for.

Reporting to government and cybersecurity agencies

The Federal Trade Organization is a national entity that allows you to report phishing emails. To do so, forward them to reportphishing@apwg.org.

Remember to learn the characteristics of phishing emails so you can better protect yourself by recognizing them. Make sure to report them to your company’s IT department at least.

Want to get the most out of your organization’s cybersecurity? We provide a variety of advanced cybersecurity solutions and will help your organization stay protected from threats like phishing attempts and even provide cybersecurity training. Contact TeamLogic IT today.