Email scams are common, and often successful. In fact, it only takes one lucky hacker to get into your account before a scammer can steal your passwords, money or personal details. That’s why it’s important to be vigilant and always carefully examine any email that seems suspicious or unusual.

A few clues that an email scam check include poor spelling and grammar, and a sense of urgency such as threats to close your account or request that you verify your details immediately. Checking the ‘from’ address and ensuring that it matches the name of the organisation is another good tip. Also, if the email is asking you to visit a website, make sure it’s a secure site by looking for the ‘https:’ at the start of the URL or the closed padlock icon at the bottom right corner of the browser window.

Stay Ahead of the Game: How to Conduct an Effective Email Scam Check

It’s a good idea to have separate email addresses for personal and business correspondence, and to avoid posting your email address on websites such as blogs, chat rooms or online classified ads. Criminal hackers ‘harvest’ these emails and use them to target you with spam, phishing and malware attacks. You can help to reduce the flow of unwanted emails by using your email service’s spam filters and by marking them as spam if they slip through. If you click on a link in a scam email, disconnect from your Wi-Fi or mobile network immediately, and reboot your device to reduce the chances of downloading malware that could spy on you or expose your sensitive information to other hackers.