Preventing Your Self from Being a Gmail Phishing Victim – Important Tips

In the recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of people becoming victims of phishing e-mails on Gmail. The cybercriminals are on the rise and they are misusing the advancement in technology to carry out their phishing activities. They believe that the users Gmail log in information are a soft target and indulge in various scams.

What is phishing exactly?

Phishing is basically a fraudulent act that the hackers indulge in to deceive the internet users for obtaining their personal and/or confidential details like name, residential or office address, bank account details, credit card number, passwords and security pins. There are a large of people who deliberately indulge in such fraudulent activities; they disguise themselves as genuine people and scam the innocent people. Mostly, phishing activities are carried out through malicious applications, rouge software, fake websites that look legitimate, instant messaging and e-mails.

How to save yourself from becoming Phishing victim on Gmail? – Here are some tips mentioned below:

•  Change your password frequently

Typically, most people fall prey to phishing e-mail frauds mainly because of their weak password. Having a password that can be easily predicted (such as your birth date, pet name or spouse’s name) can make your g-mail account vulnerable to be hacked. It is therefore recommended to use a good password; it should be a combination of alphabets and numbers. When you change your password, gmail would prompt you to provide an alternative e-mail, make sure that you change the password for the alternative e-mail too.

•  Check the URL

If you get any e-mail asking to provide your sensitive information like the credit number and bank account details or prompt you to click on any particular link. Make sure that you check the link first. If the link reads ‘https’, you can be assured that the site is safe. Also, make sure that here is a padlock icon on the browser. If you find the link structure doesn’t read as https or if there is no padlock icon, the link might be malicious and contain virus that can ruin your system.

• Use a good phishing filter and anti-malware software

With the recent updates of the majority of the browsing platforms including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, the security measures are beefed up. The browsers have built-in features that help in preventing phishing e-mail on g-mail as well as other e-mail sites. It is also advisable to use a good phishing filter or security software suite that would prevent you from jeopardizing your security.

•  Think critically

A lot of g-mail users have reported of receiving e-mails that promises them to provide them huge amount of rewards. Remember, these e-mail are just phishing e-mails that lure people to click on the links so that they can get access to the confidential details stored on your computer or the data on your g-mail. If you find any e-mails in your Gmail inbox and you find that the message/offer is too good to be true, then more often than not it is a scam e-mail.

Refrain from clicking on any of the links mentioned in such e-mails and even if you do, strictly avoid divulging your important details.