Police chief warns of increase in scam emails
There has been an increase in phishing emails received by locals, police chief Stuart Clemenson has said.
Phishing emails try to trick people into clicking on a link, downloading an attachment or providing sensitive information – and can often appear to be legitimate.
He has urged the public to be vigilant when it comes to suspicious emails, and pointed towards some tips people can follow to avoid being caught out.
Mr Clemenson said people should be cautious of unexpected emails, even if they appear to be from a known sender or company, and to be wary if they create a sense of urgency that they need to be dealt with quickly.
“Always verify the authenticity of such emails by checking the source,” he said.
“You can do this by calling or directly messaging the sender.”
Other tips were to watch out for domain spoofing, where attackers create fake websites or email address which at first appear legitimate, but often contain slight spelling errors or differences.
People were also advised to hover over any links to check where they lead before clicking on them, and to be cautious of unexpected attachments.
Rob Jones
Just to clarify “You can do this by calling or directly messaging the sender.”. This would entail going onto the Internet and doing a search for the purported sender company, and getting the number and/or email address from their website and using that contact only, ignoring any numbers in the message you’ve been sent, and definitely not using the reply function to an email or text message, or clicking on a likely-looking number in the suspect message – what you click on doesn’t necessarily dial the number that you see. It’s a pain, as I imagine that getting in contact with Amazon’s UK fraud department (for example), would be a very time-consuming process, but if you think the message could be genuine, it’s the only safe way.