About: Phishing vs Spam Email

Spam and Phishing emails are both common occurrences in today's business environment. Understanding the difference between the two can help you stay safe and protect your company's resources. 

Phishing involves deceptive messages aimed at tricking individuals into reveling sensitive information or taking harmful actions. It relies on mimicking trusted sources, using malicious links or attachments, and exploiting human psychology. Some common elements of phishing messages include: 

• Spoofed Sending Address: Phishing messages often appear to come from trusted, legitimate sources such as banks, business partners, or other trusted sources. 
• Suspicious or Misleading URLs: Phishing emails often contain links that, while appearing legitimate, direct users to fraudulent websites to collect sensitive information such as usernames/passwords, credit card numbers, or bank account information
• Requests for Personal Information: Phishing messages commonly ask recipients to provide personal or confidential information, such as passwords, Social Security numbers, credit card details, or account numbers.
• Sense or Urgency or Threatening Language: Phishers often create a false sense of urgency or fear to intimidate recipients into taking immediate action. This could involve claims that your account has been suspended or compromised
• Misspellings and Grammatical Errors: Phishing messages often contain spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or awkward language usage. These errors can serve as red flags that the message is not from a legitimate source.
• Unsolicited Requests: Phishing emails typically arrive unexpectedly, without any prior interaction or request from the recipient. Be cautious if you receive an email asking for sensitive information out of the blue.
• Too Good to Be True Offers: Some phishing messages promise unbelievable offers, prizes, or rewards to entice recipients into clicking on links or sharing their informationSome phishing messages promise unbelievable offers, prizes, or rewards to entice recipients into clicking on links or sharing their information.

Spam consists of unsolicited messages, often sent to a large number of people. Its main purposed is often commercial, promoting products or services to generate sales or engagement. While spam creates clutter and is inconvenient, it is not necessarily malicious. 

If you receive a suspected phishing message, please do your part and report it to your company's IT department. Reporting suspicious messages:

• Helps improve email filters to more effectively block malicious messages in the future
• Allows your IT department to investigate the message further and take necessary actions to protect the organization