How to spot scam emails

Sure you recognise the name, but are you sure that email asking you to download or visit a site is from your work colleague?

We have noticed a steady increase in malicious emails that are crafted to look like they are from trusted internal email addresses along with more examples of complex phishing scenarios targeting individuals in our offices. We are doing our best in the background to help catch these emails however some unfortunately do slip through. 

As an added defense we need your help so we are adding a new banner to all inbound emails that originate from an external source.  It will serve two purposes:

1. It will remind us to be extra careful if it contains links, a request, or attachments and
2. If it claims to be from a colleague that is part of our shared email platform (like our boss or the President or CFO etc) it will allow us to detect it as being likely malicious and give us the opportunity to call them directly to validate it before we action it.

Internal emails will have NO banner.  That does not mean they are guaranteed to be safe. As peoples’ mailboxes can be compromised too but is less likely if we all keep our passwords complex, secure and unique per site.  Regardless if something doesn’t feel right, seek clarification via the phone.

External email will have an added banner that looks like this;

This is something you will notice many other companies doing now and is considered “best practice” and is just one tool in the toolbox to try and keep our emails safe.  We know it may not look aesthetic, but its function is to raise awareness.  Thank you for being accommodating and working with us as we seek to improve our email security in this ever-changing landscape of internet security.