How to Avoid Becoming a Victim of Online Fraud: These Signs Will Help You Distinguish a Phishing Site from a Real One
Phishing comes from the English word, which can be translated as “to fish” or “to fish out”.
This is exactly what the scammers operating on the Internet are trying to do – to extract personal information from you.
The safety rules listed below will prevent you from falling for the bait and leave the scammers with nothing.
How to Avoid Becoming a Victim of Internet Fraud
Before you respond to an email from an unknown sender, and especially before you begin to follow the instructions contained therein, first carefully check the original data.
Do not follow links provided in a letter or message. You can check the authenticity of a link by hovering over it with your cursor – in this case, you will see the real address. Alternatively, you can enter the address manually in a new browser window.
Check the websites where you are going to enter your personal data. To avoid falling into the nets of scammers who are churning out websites that are duplicates of well-known organizations and services almost every minute, use the following tips.
- Instead of the secure https protocol, phishing sites use http.
- On a real site, to the left of the link in the browser, there is an icon in the form of a closed lock. If you hover over it, you will see the phrase "secure connection". If instead of this phrase it says "your connection is not secure", it is better to leave the site.
- The domain name of a phishing site often contains extra characters or is misspelled.
Earlier we talked about how to properly respond to rudeness from strangers.
