{"id":8134,"date":"2022-01-24T16:55:28","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T08:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cldy.com\/sg\/?p=8134"},"modified":"2023-02-28T20:47:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-28T12:47:35","slug":"avoid-phishing-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cldy.com\/sg\/blog\/email-hosting\/avoid-phishing-scams\/","title":{"rendered":"Phishing Scams: How To Avoid Becoming a Victim"},"content":{"rendered":"

It happened to around 470 victims, and it could happen to you too!<\/span><\/p>\n

It is no longer news that around S$8.5 Million had been stolen from these close to 470 victims of bank theft across Singapore, via a spate of SMS scams. The series of SMS phishing scams happened in December, and some of the victims include a specialist from the eCommerce sector and even a software engineer.<\/span><\/p>\n

If individuals from these tech-savvy backgrounds could fall prey to these phishing scams, there is no doubt that anyone is vulnerable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Phishing, or the harvesting of login information via fraudulent methods, is by no means a new mode of scamming and robbing people. One of the first phishing techniques was actually developed and reported as early as 1987.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The term \u201cphishing\u201d was coined by a spammer and hacker Khan C. Smith, as he stole passwords and financial details of America Online (AOL) users via his hacking tool, AOHell. Since then, \u201cphishing\u201d has come to describe the virulent, malicious, and even malevolent annoyance that is spam email, and now, SMS texts, that have the capability of stealing a person\u2019s financial information, if they\u2019re gullible enough to fork these over.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From AOHell targeting AOL, down to the rise of millions of spam, and phishing scams across the growth of the internet, phishing has crossed over to SMS.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Phishing is merely \u201cannoying\u201d if you\u2019re wise enough to recognize and dodge the scheme. If you had been too trusting and believed the whole narrative they deliver, just like the rest of the 470 bank fraud victims, your hard-earned savings could be wiped out in a matter of seconds by a ruthless, conscience-less mastermind out there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Experts recommended that in order to mitigate this massive security and financial liability, links in SMS from banks, or even using SMS as a second layer of \u201cprotection\u201d should be done away with.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As the Singaporean financial industry scrambles to protect and even reimburse their clientele, individuals and corporations must also learn how to be on guard before anything of this sort happens to them and their companies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"light-man-people-woman-phishing-scams\"Photo by Mikhail Nilov via <\/span><\/em>Pexels<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Email Remains Largely Unchanged, So Does Phishing<\/b><\/h4>\n

The widespread security and financial scandal happened via SMS, but as mentioned, an older phishing vulnerability was already in place: Phishing via email.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

An email has remained almost unchanged over the decades. Email providers admit that the protocol has remained the same over the years: SSL, TLS, POP3, IMAP, and SMTP.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In spite of some snazzy innovations that make email just a bit cooler, just a bit smarter, just a bit powered by AI, it has remained largely unchanged. And the system of targeting email users has remained largely unchanged, as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The system is simple:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n