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How to protect yourself from phishing scams

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    How to protect yourself from phishing scams

What is a Phishing scam/attack?
Phishing is the term used to describe the act of a malicious entity pretending to be someone they’re not in order to take advantage of a victim via email, text, or some other messaging program.

What does a Phishing scam/attack look like?
A Phishing email can appear like anything from a random looking email address with a bunch of broken English to a very official looking email with watermarks, a proper looking email, and even proper logos.

Examples of how to easily identify a Phishing scam.

Wrong or fake email address:
The first and easiest thing to identify is whether the email is coming from the correct address.

Examples:
Correct: frdoug@ollparish.info
Fake:
- abj245@gmail.com
- fatherdoug@gmail.com
- frdoug@gmail.com
- frdoug@scamcenter.net
- frdoug@ollporish.info
Grammatical and spelling errors:
If the email is not properly drafted and/or is full of grammatical and spelling errors, it most likely did not come from a reputable source.

Examples:
Proper email:
Good Morning Joe,
I hope you had a good weekend. I was wondering if I could get an update on the order we made last Tuesday for electrical supplies needed for the upcoming installation. We have the contractor lined up to be on site for the 14th, and we would like to have everything together when they arrive.
Thank you,
Fred Durst
Improper email:
hello
kindly responding to my email with # order for electrical parts… I need to hear from you soon as I meet with the contracter soon, looking forward to hear your email
Fred Durst

Suspicious links or attachments:
Links in emails and texts can lead you anywhere on the internet or cause you to download anything from the internet. DON’T CLICK ANYTHING UNLESS YOU KNOW FOR CERTAIN IT IS SAFE.
A good little tech tip to know if you are on a PC is if you hover your cursor over a link without clicking on it, and down in the bottom left of the window, it will show the URL that is attached to the link.

What to do:
The safest thing to if you recieve a phishing scam email is to immediately delete it. Unfortunately, just deleteing the email doesn't help to prevent further emails. Most email services have an option to mark an email as spam, or even to flag it as phishing. This helps your email to block/flag future phishing emails so they don't appear in your primary inbox. In the case of phishing texts, make sure you block the email/phone number when deleting the text.

Final Thoughts:
If after addressing all these identifiers you still aren’t certain, then go directly to the correct source and have them confirm the message is genuine. DON’T EVER GIVE OUT ANY PERSONAL AND/OR FINANCIAL INFORMATION OR SEND MONEY IN ANY FORM! Unfortunately, religious organizations are a prime target for these kinds of scams due to the very giving nature of their members. The fact of the matter is that there are people out there looking to take advantage of anyone they can, and the best thing we can do is arm ourselves with the knowledge to protect ourselves.

If you want some more detailed information, you can read an article by Luke Irwin from March 22nd, 2022 that was referenced in the making of this guide at https://www.itgovernance.co.uk/blog/5-ways-to-detect-a-phishing-email

If you have any other questions, or if anything is unclear, feel free to send an email to patrick@ollparish.info

Our Lady of the Lake

Mandeville, LA

How to protect yourself from phishing scams