I have noticed recently an influx in the amount of “bad” emails being received by some of our users. I have a few words of wisdom and experience to share with you (please pass this info along to your employees):
- Just because you receive an email from someone you know, it doesn’t necessarily mean the message is safe. Utilize your Preview screen in your mail client to see what’s in the message. I’ve received several messages from people I know with links inside that take you to “bad” places. If the verbiage in the message doesn’t sound like something your contact would say, odds are good they didn’t send it. Immediately trash the message, without opening it, and send your contact a fresh message alerting them to the strong possibility that their contact list has been compromised. Most people will appreciate the extra mile you took in letting them know
- NEVER open up an attachment in an email that has an .EXE extension unless you are certain as to who sent it and why they sent it. An .EXE is an executable file that has computer commands in it telling the computer to execute a series of commands. If this .EXE file has some “bad” code in it, opening this file could release code that could do irreparable damage to your programs, data, configuration, etc. on your computer as well as others on your network. Ransomware, such as crypto, could infect your data files (.docx, .xlsx, etc.) causing them to be unreadable without paying a ransom for the fix. These ransoms could run into the hundreds or thousands of dollars, with no guarantee that the fix will work. Be certain that you always have at least one good backup of all your data files.
I’ll have more soon but make note of the above and adhere to my warnings. It will save you down time and money!