Good morning, everyone! I hope this finds you all well. While quite similar in concept to fishing, phishing is a much more nefarious practice that attempts to use fake e-mails as the bait in order to acquire your private information or hard earned money.

What is a phishing e-mail? It is a method of trying to gather personal information by using deceptive e-mails.  Criminals attack by sending a fake e-mail asking you to click a link or download an attachment, which appears as a legitimate source. We are all susceptible to this form of theft and invasion of our financial safety.  As an example, Google and Facebook were taken for $100 million each: for two years, phisher ‘Rimasauskas’ sent Google and Facebook fake invoices, making over $200 million dollars before being caught.

Some scam e-mails and posts can look legitimate. Servus Credit Union provides a list on how to recognize a phishing scam.  Knowing what to inspect in your email can keep your devices and information safe.

• Attachments or links from people that you are not expecting.
• Very urgent requests for you to provide information, transfer money or buy gift cards.
• Typos in the subject line or body of an e-mail.
• The e-mail address or link does not match the person or company it’s coming from.
• Telling you that you suddenly owe a lot of money or have had a large sum of money become available to you.

Paying close attention to the points made above can greatly reduce your chance of falling victim to this scam.