To make sure your emails keep going through without any problems, all websites hosted with us will have the necessary information added to your website within the next 21 days. This will allow our email servers to send messages on your behalf, and Gmail will recognise them as safe.

Why is this important?

Making sure your emails reach their intended recipients is really important to us. One way we can do this is by setting up your domain’s SPF record correctly. This helps build trust between your domain and Gmail, increasing the likelihood that your emails will end up in people’s inboxes. By doing this, we can avoid any issues that might prevent your emails from getting through and protect your professional reputation by making sure they don’t get marked as spam by mistake.

What is Phishing?

First I will explain what Phishing is; Phishing is a way of fraudulently acquiring sensitive information, such as credit card, bank account, login details or any other piece of personally identifiable information by tricking users with official-looking email messages. They appear to have come from legitimate sources by the sender (thief) using official looking logos, company addresses, names and visual links in a hope that the recipient (you) opens the attachment or click on the rogue link to start the criminal activity (hack, infection by Trojan or malware).

What to Look Out For?

Here are a few clues on what to look out for when spotting a Phishing email.

1. Check where the email came from, examine the senders email address. It might have come from a public email address (i.e. xxx@outlook.com or xxx@yahoo.co.uk).
2. Look at bogus attachments, if it has a PDF, Zip or Word document attached doesn’t make it real or legitimate.
3. PANIC!, if an email has created a sense of impending doom if you don’t act TODAY! then be suspicious.
4. Links that sound correct can very easily be faked. This link for example should take you to our website www.rlscomputers.co.uk, when it actual takes you to the BBC website. If you are unsure NEVER click on a link and always visit the website site directly yourself.
5. Grammer is a major clue to Phishing email attacks, sometimes the dialect is a very obvious tell but can be over looked.

What Does a Phishing Email look Like?

I have collected some examples over time, so some of these are old but still lethal (some details have been masked for security reasons).

What Can I Do To Stop it?

You can’t stop all of it, but you can avoid a nasty outcome and reduce it down considerably by following these guidelines.

• Never send sensitive account information (PIN codes, passwords, account reminder phrases or mothers maiden name) in an e-mail message.
• Never go to a sensitive site through an e-mail link; always type the site name in your browser (such as www.paypal.com)
• Never open attachments from a untrusted or unknown source (this includes PDF and Zip files)
• Never share your passwords with anyone.
• If your bank requires verification, do it over the phone or in person.
• Verify any person who contacts you unsolicited, claiming to be customer support from a company (if they have to ask who you are, then they don’t know who you are)
• Always report fraud to the company that the thief is portraying to be or represent.
• SPAM / Junk block the Phishing emails, then delete them.
• Make sure you empty your SPAM or Junk folders and email bin frequently (I do it daily)!

Seek technical advice on this if you are not sure.

Contact
RLS Computer Services – IT Support
01553 776937
Email support@rlscomputers.co.uk

You can report scams to:

Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline 03454 04 05 06 or www.adviceguide.org

Action Fraud (UK’s National Fraud Office) 0300 123 2040 or www.actionfraud.police.uk

National Cyber Security Centre https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/phishing