Recently I’ve had an increase in questions from users concerned about the legitimacy of e-mails they’ve received. To help users recognize the scam e-mails that do sneak by filters.

Here are some ways to protect yourself from phishing and scam emails…

1) Be wary of e-mails asking for your personal information.

Any e-mail asking for your name, birth date, social security number, e-mail username, e-mail password, or any other type of personal information, no matter who the e-mail appears to be from, is almost certainly a scam.

If you have any reason to believe it may be legitimate, do not reply to the e-mail or click any hyperlinks; instead copy and paste the web URL or go to that company’s website for contact information. Don’t hesitate to contact the company’s support channel to confirm legitimacy or check out a site such as snopes.com which lists e-mail scams.

2) Carefully read e-mails that appear suspicious.

E-mails that are poorly worded, have typos, or have phrases such as “this is not a joke” or “forward this message to your friends” are generally scam e-mails.

Sometimes company names or brands are misspelled or inaccurate; such as saying Windows Hotmail (instead of Windows Live™ Hotmail) or Bank of Amarika (instead of Bank of America).

3) Protect your email password.

Create a strong password for your email account by using more than 7 characters and having a combination of upper and lower case characters, numbers, and special characters, like the @ or # symbols. It’s also a good idea to change your password on a regular basis.

If you receive a notification from a company confirming your request to change your password, as I did this past week, and you haven’t recently changed your password, that’s a signal that someone else may be trying to gain access to your email account, and you should immediately change your password.

4) Take action!

If you think someone has accessed your email account, or you receive a suspicious e-mail that tries to confirm a password change you didn’t authorize, change your password immediately. Next, help ensure your PC has not been infected with a virus or malware by running a free full-PC scan.

Whatever you do…

Do not reply back to the sender.

Do not click on links.

Do not open file attachements.