Have you received an email that seems a little strange and questionable? If you suspect it may be a trap here are three ways to find out if an email is real or fake.
Have you ever come across an email that, although it looked like it was from a company or a bank, seemed suspicious to you? There are many ways fraudsters use to forge email addresses. But there are also ways to find out if the sender is real or not. See how you can identify genuine emails from fake ones.
1. Check the "From" address.
You will often find that fake emails have a similar sender address to a known company or service. It is common in phishing emails trying to "fish" you.
Take for example a bank, say Piraeus. If you receive an email from Piraeus, you will see that the email address is IBankV2Email@piraeusbank.gr. Scammers would use similar email addresses as IBankV2Email@piraeus_bank_sa.gr to try to trick the recipient.
Another example is the way fraudsters enter the name of reputable companies to deceive the public. For example, they could mistype Microsoft using an "r" and an "n" to make it look like an "m".
Alternatively, scammers could use spoofing software to show you a legitimate email address. In this case, it is much harder to tell if the email is real or not. Indicative signs are now limited to any orthographics errors in the text of the email or links with suspicious appearance.
2. Check the "Reply to" address.
When you receive an e-mail from someone, you usually reply to the same e-mail address, unless otherwise instructed to do so. This is what scammers do when they send fake emails using someone else's email addresses but do not have access to those accounts.
That is, they send you an email from IBankV2Email@piraeusbank.gr but they do not have access to this email to see your answer.
If an email scamIf a response from you is required, you will see that the “Reply to” field has a different email address than the one that actually sent you the email.
Scammers use this technique to obtain answers, enticing you to read and respond to emails they send, using the names of reputable brands, companies, government agencies, and so on.
3. Check the email headers
Three main email security technologies are used, the SPF, DKIM and DMARC. These technologies help recipients of emails to check if they are actually from the recipient or from a scammer.
Most major websites and companies use these three security measures correctly, as they allow your mail client to detect and block fake emails. It is worth bearing in mind that some companies may not use these technologies or may not enforce them properly.
To check the security of an email, click the three dots in the upper right-hand corner of any suspicious email and click Show Original or View Original or Equivalent Term. Here, you will be able to see each of the security checks and whether the email has passed or failed.
Although this situation may not tell you definitively whether an email is real or not, it certainly gives a good sign. If you see a result of failure or soft fail, then you should probably delete the email.
Why should you check your emails?
You may be wondering why your email provider or even the program you see does not automatically check and filter out spam and fake emails with so many controls, firewalls and security levels in place. They are checked and you will even see some of them in a folder entitled "Unwanted".
But he can't do everything. 140 million newly scanned domains in one research of SPF, 80 percent did not have SPF records, which is the minimum for security. Without SPF records, there is no way for your email account to accurately filter spam.
No test or trick can tell you that an email is 100% authentic or suspicious. You may need to do a lot of testing to figure it out.
It is always best to check for suspicious emails
So you should always check what was mentioned above when you suspect that you have received a suspicious email. Piracy and cyber fraud are becoming more common as time goes on. Scammers deceive the innocent public who know little or nothing about technology, constantly using different techniques.
In the future, the number of fake emails will increase due to the significant shift towards digitization. Be careful and control when in doubt.
