Sick of getting spam and scams in your emails and texts?
Cybercriminals have only gotten smarter and more adept at tricking regular and even security-aware people into falling for their tactics.
Thankfully, technology has developed alongside cyber threats to help protect our data. For example, some email/spam software allows users to report spam with the click of a button. This improves spam filtering and stops unwanted emails that built-in spam filters alone aren’t catching. This is just one of the many tricks you’ll need up your sleeve to stay away from scammers and spammers.
How Dangerous are Spam and Scams Really?
In 2022, $8.8B was stolen via fraud! It’s a severe problem that can cost you a lot of money. According to the FBI, phone scams (vishing or voice phishing) yielded an average loss of $1,400 per person in 2022.
To break it down even further:
- $660M to business impersonators
- $1.2B to social media scams
- $2.6B to imposter scams
- $3.8B to investment scams
That’s only the damage done via phone scams. Fraud is no joke, and cyber criminals sure aren’t kidding.
It’s not just phone calls, either. Phishing scams traditionally happen over email. But they can also happen over text (SMS), known as smishing. These are just a few ways that they might reach out to you, hoping to harvest personal information or credentials. Staying aware of what these types of threats look like and how dangerous they can be can go a long way toward safeguarding yourself from any scam you encounter.
Staying Cyber Safe from Spam and Scams
Many services let you review suspected spam messages and confirm or deny if you want to let them through the automated filters, thereby improving the artificial intelligence that determines what goes in your inbox.
You should also change your account settings to block known scammers and suspicious emails automatically. Set your email to only allow messages from known senders. Use this option with caution, however, because there are plenty of instances where unknown contacts reach out to you for legitimate, wanted reasons.
Setting your personalized filters helps, too! If your email keeps letting through a pesky scammer who won’t leave you alone, you can manually block their domain name and even block that user from sending you mail, regardless of how many fake addresses they make.
Personalizing your settings will make your platforms more private and secure. Communicate your way and stay safe doing it.
What next?
Phishing and other social engineering scams have only gotten more dangerous! Know the signs and your incident response plan BEFORE something serious happens so you don’t end up part of a statistic that nobody wants to join.
Although spam is ubiquitous (and therefore hard to avoid), that persistence is precisely what makes these messages so threatening. You only need to fall for one scam one time for your systems to become compromised; threat actors don’t have to trick you repeatedly. One slip-up can be catastrophic via negligence, ignorance, or accident.
Fortunately, security awareness is your best defense. By reaching the end of this blog, you’ve already taken one HUGE step toward better cyber safety every day.
Commonwealth Sentinel can help by providing you and your team with the best technology solutions and training. Click here for a free consultation, or contact us at (502) 320-9885 to learn more.