Phishing Awareness Campaign

Phishing Awareness Campaign To Raise Awareness On The Risks Posed By Phishing Attacks

Police Scotland are supporting Team Cyber UK’s Phishing campaign. The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness around Phishing attacks, which are now one of the most common security challenges that individuals and companies across the UK face on a regular basis.

Criminals and Organised Crime Groups now launch widespread Phishing attacks, targeting personal/business accounts either by email, social media, or text. They encourage users to click on malicious link/attachments which compromise their email or social media accounts, asking users to divulge banking information or access sensitive information.

These attacks are becoming increasingly common and more sophisticated, and traditional ICT network defences alone are often not enough to detect and prevent them.

The simple advice below describes how you can spot suspicious emails, and the steps you can take to ensure that you don’t fall victim, both at work and home:

• Confirm details of the actual email address it came from, you can do this by hovering mouse over the senders email address.



• Many phishing emails have poor grammar, punctuation and spelling.



• Is the design and overall quality what would you'd expect from the organisation the email is supposed to come from?



• Is it addressed to you by name, or does it refer to 'valued customer', or 'friend', or 'colleague'? This can be a sign that the sender does not actually know you, and that it is part of a phishing scam.



• Does the email contain a veiled threat that asks you to act urgently, or cause intrigue? Be suspicious of words like 'send these details within 24 hours' or 'you have been a victim of crime, click here immediately'.



• Look at the sender's name. Does it sound legitimate, or is it trying to mimic someone you know?



• If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It's most unlikely that someone will want to give you money, or give you access to a secret part of the Internet.



• Your bank, or any other official source, should never ask you to supply personal information from an email.

Original Message Sent By
Alistair MacKenzie (Partnerships and Events, North East Division, Police Scotland)