Cyber Crime Team - Safe emails

June 30th 2017

Campaign Week

Cleveland Police Cyber Crime Unit is running a Cyber Hygiene Campaign between Monday 26^th June and Friday 30^th June 2017.  Each day the campaign will have a specific focus and we will be issuing media releases giving advice and support.  To support the campaign we will issue a newsletter each day for this week only. Look out for social media and local news coverage.

Today we focus on Safe emails

Can you tell the difference between an authentic email and a fake?

Would your bank, a retailer, courier company or police force really send you that email?

Email is one of the most commonplace methods used by fraudsters to lure you into parting with your money, or your identity … or both...

Get Safe Online has put together some simple tips to help you protect yourself from falling for fraudulent emails:

• If you receive an email you haven’t requested or it seems unusual you have received it, make sure it’s actually from the person or organisation who claims to have sent it. You could do this by calling the real person on a number you know to be the right one.
• Don’t open attachments in emails from unknown sources, or if it seems strange that the email would come from that source.
• Check for poor design, grammar and spellings, and whether the email addresses you by name. However event if an email passes these tests, it may still be from a fraudster.
• Don’t click on links in emails from unknown sources, or if it seems strange that the email would come from that source.
• Don’t make purchases, payments of charity donations in response to spurious emails.
• Beware of emails which suggest that you need to transfer money, provide personal details or perform some other critical action urgently to ‘resolve a problem’. Banks, government departments, the police and other trusted organisations would never communicate these kinds of problems in this way.
• Don’t reply to an email which you suspect is fraudulent, and don’t forward it unless you’re reporting it.
• Don’t click on ‘remove’, or reply to unwanted email – this may result in you getting a flood of unwanted scam or spam emails.
• Make sure spam filters are switched on and set up appropriately to avoid unwanted emails getting through, but permitting authentic ones from trusted sources. But remember to check junk mail folders regularly in case a legitimate email gets sent there in error.
• Use strong passwords to prevent your email accounts being hacked. Keep passwords to yourself, and don’t use more than one for more than one online account.
• When sending emails to multiple people, list their addresses in the ‘BCC’ (blind copy) box instead of in the ‘To’ box. In this way, no recipient will see the names of the others, and if their addresses fall into the wrong hands there will be less chance of you or anybody else receiving phishing or spam emails. 

If you have any queries or would like further details on any of the above please contact –

Adele Dack – Intelligence Development Researcher, Cyber Crime Team, Cleveland Police

Tel: 01642 306870 or via email Adele.Dack2@cleveland.pnn.police.uk

Information collated from following online sources;

www.actionfraud.police.uk/

www.getsafeonline.org

­­­­­­­­­Should you become a victim of online crime please contact your local force on 101

You can also report via Action Fraud using their online fraud reporting tool www.actionfraud.police.uk. Alternatively you can report to Action Fraud and get advice by calling 0300 1230 2040 Please note this number will be charged at your normal network rate.