The dangers of Phishing
Phishing is a form of hacking where hackers impersonate big organisations or individuals to trick people into providing sensitive information. This is typically done through E-mails and websites that appear to be from a legitimate source.
Some ways to spot dodgy websites set up by cyber criminals is by checking the url, or the long thing in the search bar that appears whenever you enter a website, or the email address of the person that sent you the email. For example, some hackers pretending to be from microsoft might put their email as “support@rnicrosoft.com”.
Can you spot the error there?
If you said that the “m” in microsoft is actually an “r” and an “n” next to each other, you would be correct! This is the easiest way to spot phishing, as they cannot use the same url or email tag (the bit after the “@” symbol) as big businesses.
If you want to learn more about phishing, hacking, or are just interested in this type of thing, click here!
If they are impersonating anyone, if on social media, just check their posts/ profile picture, because the impersonator doesn’t usuallly go that far as to change their social media posts to fit the person they are impersonating.
About the author – This was made by Scott Humphries, a student on the CyberSafeSchools Academy virtual work experience programme. The Academy provides secondary school and college students with structured, hands-on experience in cybersecurity and digital marketing. Find out more about CyberSafeSchools →