How to detect phishing emails

Phishing is the act of trying to obtain sensitive information such as usernames and passwords, credit card details etc. illegally by disguising as trustworthy entity in the cyberspace.

Most times, the phishers always present a link to click on the disguised mail they send out that takes the unsuspecting individual to their webpage where those vital information are retrieved.

For the inexperienced and unsuspecting individuals, they are often caught lose guard where they end up clicking on those links and submitting their details on the phishers webpage thereby jeopardizing their private and vital information.

Cyber security is an individual measure to take and it is always advisable for web surfers to maintain 100% consciousness in all their online dealings, especially those who carry out online businesses and have lots of account with online companies.

Must read: How to send mass mail directly to inbox for free using Mailkitchen

Today’s topic will be centered on my recent and personal experience on an unsuspected phishing mail, so you too can easily take a cue from it and on how I was able to finally detect that the mail was from a cyber-phisher.

Yesterday, I received an email (phishing email) in my Yahoo account inbox, and as usual, at first, it never occurred to me that something fishy was just sent to my inbox, and the phisher only succeeded in sending fears down my spines and kept me perturbed through the momentary ordeal with the content of the email which was purported to come from Yahoo.

The mail goes something like this “That I have violated the Yahoo Terms of Service and that I stand the risk of losing my Yahoo account in the next 24hours if I fail to confirm my Yahoo Terms of Service”. And now, the link in there for me to click was Confirm Yahoo Terms of Service.

Recommended: How to send mail with attachment in the new Gmail mobile platform

After reading, I checked to see the sender, and it was actually from Yahoo (purported Yahoo), and with Yahoo image-like content in the mail, I was shocked to the teeth and was tempted to click on the confirm Yahoo Terms of Service in order for me to safe my account from being deactivated as purported.

For me, my Yahoo account means a lot to me and I can’t afford the chance to see my Yahoo account just go like that.

I paused on that process without taking any action and started pondering on how I have used my Yahoo account over the last few days, whether I have truly done something that was against Yahoo Terms of Services, but in my bewilderment and reasoning, I was not able to figure out any illegal activity on my part, but I was still tempted to click on the purported TOS confirmation link.

After sometimes, and because of my wealth of online experiences, the idea immediately came to my mind that this might be a phishing mail, I turned and asked a friend who was there with me when I opened the mail, if he had received any such mail before, and he said no.

You can also read: How to use you laptop to maintain its elongated battery lifespan

I now decided to carry out thorough investigation on the source of the mail and went through the mail again, lo and behold, I was able to detect it was a phishing mail.

Here are the parameters I used to figure out that it was a phishing mail and not truly from Yahoo as purported.

==> I went through my old mails to retrieve a mail previously from Yahoo in order to compare with the purported Yahoo mail I received yesterday, and I was able to figure out a lot of discrepancies from the purported Yahoo mail.

I took time to observe the sender name, which was Yahoo, and then I now have to check out the text font in which the Yahoo was written and noticed that it was entirely different from that of the original Yahoo.

= => Again, I noticed that the original Yahoo mail, came with a tiny Yahoo image snippet just by the side of the Yahoo sender, whereas there was no such image snippet on the purported Yahoo sender mail.

= => I then went again to read in between the lines on the purported Yahoo mail, and I was able to figure out some spelling errors, about 5 wrongly spelt words, but you will hardly find such numbers of errors coming from original Yahoo mail.

Don’t miss: How to download video from facebook

It was after those observations that it became clear to me that I was dealing with a phishing mail and my perturbed mind regained phlegm, then I immediately reported the mail as spam and it was removed as usual.

Now this is the 28^th hour and counting and my Yahoo account is still very active against the purported 24hour ultimatum to deactivate my account and I want to boldly say that there is no single cause for alarm or whatsoever at this moment.

And it is important to note here that it might not always or necessary come to only your Yahoo mail box, as other mail providers are not exempted from phishers

Finally, you can easily take cues from my yesterday’s experience as highlighted above in order for you to be able to detect phishing mails too whenever you come across such in your inbox. Together we can keep the cyberspace cleaner and safer if we circulate these types of messages.