The practice of phishing is a strategy used by cybercriminals to steal personal and financial information from individuals by impersonating a genuine business such as a bank, social networking site, or government agency.

The most prevalent type of phishing scam is one that is spread by email, but cyber crooks may also propagate their fraud through other channels, such as social media sites, if they want.

Their main aim is usually to collect sensitive information such as names and surnames, email addresses, personal identification numbers, passwords, credit card numbers, and other similar information.

Phishing Techniques and Tricks

Phishing phone calls and text messages are usually not asked for. Fraudsters use situations where there is an emergency, some kind of profit, or a problem to get you to act quickly and share your information without thinking.

These fraudulent communications employ a variety of deception techniques to fool the recipient and pressure him to make a decision fast, or else severe repercussions, such as denial of a service or loss of a gift or promotion, may occur. The following are the most frequently employed phishing techniques:

•They try to highlight technical difficulties associated with the entity they want to substitute.
•By proffering security suggestions to help you prevent being a victim of fraud.
•By suggesting changes to the security policy of the organization.
•Product promotion for new items.
•Vouchers, rewards, or presents of any kind.
•By alerting you that the service is about to be shut down or deactivated, thereby stirring a feeling of emergency.
•By sending emails containing malicious attachments, and enticing you to download it.

One distinguishing characteristic of many phishing emails is that they frequently contain typographical and grammatical mistakes. This is due to the fact that the messages are generated by automated programs that make use of translation features and thesauruses, and as a result, the messages differ from one another and are never the same.

What to do if you suspect a phishing attempt

Think Twice Before Sharing Your Personal Information.

Never disclose your personal details and IDs or respond to these communications under any circumstances. Whenever in doubt, contact us or the firm involved directly through the proper channels to ascertain their legitimacy. Our company will not call, email or text you to divulge your password or personal information.

Avoid clicking on the links

Do not click on any of the links provided in the mail or download any attachments that may be included since they might contain malware. Our company will not send you emails containing malicious attachments. Contact us first before opening such mails.

Let Others Know About It

As soon as you find out about this scam, take steps to prevent others from becoming victims of it as well. Let your friends know about it. And don't hesitate to reach out to us if the attack is trying to impersonate our company.

Ways to Avoid Phishing Attacks

Use antiviruses, antispyware and spam filters in your devices.
Don't open suspicious-looking emails that appear to be from banking institutions or well-known services (e.g. Dropbox or Facebook) with messages that are alarmist or unusual.
Avoid downloading email attachments with ".zip," ".exe," or ".doc.zip" extensions. You have to scan the documents with antiviruses before downloading them, especially if you know the sender.
Always lookout for grammatical flaws. Once there are grammatical flaws in the text, a machine translator may have written the trap message. Our company will never send a message that is poorly phrased.
Verify that the link supplied in the message conforms to the legitimate service's URL. Double check the link to ensure it's the same name with our website. The difference could be a slight change like gougle.com instead of google.com
If you get anonymous messages with subject lines such as "Notification to user," "Dear customer," or "Dear friend," this is an indicator that you should be on the lookout for suspicious activity. Note that our company will always contact you by your name.
The corporate email addresses of credible organizations are usually hosted on the company's own domain name servers. Be wary if you receive a message depicting us from a commercial email address like @gmail.com or @outlook.com.
Bad trigger: If the message makes you decide quickly without thinking. Check with us or other trustworthy sources like the police to see whether the urgency is genuine or not.

What to Do If You Are a Victim of a Phishing Attack

Here is what to do if you are a victim of a phishing attack.

Report to the Security Agency

Collect any and all evidence you can in the event of a phishing scam: emails, screenshots of electronic chat, documents received, etc. Online witnesses can help you get evidence. Afterwards, lodge your complaint with the relevant state security agencies and bodies.

Notify Your Bank

If you've been the victim of bank phishing, you should get in touch with your local branch and let them know what's happened. In addition, you should change the passwords for all of the other services you use that share your online banking password.

Keep in mind that using the same password across many accounts is a recipe for disaster, so make sure to keep your passwords separate for each one.

Phishing Notice

Note that our company cannot be held responsible if you have experienced any phishing attack from scammers impersonating us. Our company has taken the necessary steps to keep your personal information safe and protect it from being changed, lost, or accessed by anyone other than the people who need it.

Users' cooperation is therefore required to ensure the security of the information, and this requires that the password to the Web and any computer or device used to access our services be safeguarded from illegal access by an unauthorized third party.

Need Help or Have Questions?

If you suspect you've received a phishing attempt claiming to be from MEDVANE, or if you have any security-related questions, please contact us immediately:

Email:support@medvane.net

Phishing and Security