Enjoy this useful guest post from Michael Strelitz from Datasafe about all those seemingly suspicious emails we’re getting even more of – plus they’re doing a great offer!

Is this email or attachment safe?

With so many currently working from home, there is an increase in questionable emails coming from miscreants trying to exploit the situation, attempting to trick you into downloading a virus or pay money under some pretext. They can be very convincing. To this end, DataSafe is offering a free service until the end of May to anyone wanting an opinion as to whether an email is genuine or a scam, and whether it’s prudent to open an attachment or not.

Attachments

These are the simplest to deal with.

    1. Do you know who sent it?
    2. Were you expecting it? 

If the answer to either the above is no, we would not open the attachment. If you are not sure, then contact the sender by phone or email to check, but don’t use any phone number or email address directly from the email itself. Obtain contact details via another means.

If you do open an attachment, it’s best to open it in Preview mode first.

Emails

Just opening an email without clicking on a url or attachment is safe. What’s not necessarily safe is going any further. Should you click on the url to find out more? Most of us have become fairly adept at sussing out a suspect email by, for example, hovering with the mouse over any url to check whether the address bears any relationship to the sender. However, some hackers have become expert at making it look as though the urls are legitimate. This is where it can become tricky – particularly when the email purports to originate from a bona fide organisation that you recognise and has some relationship to your business or computing activities.  These are the emails we will check for you – free.
 
Forward any questionable emails to:  checkmyemail@datasafe-services.co.uk  There is no need to give us any additional information unless you believe it is relevant. We will reply within a few hours during normal working times.
 
What you will get is our opinion based on years of experience. We cannot guarantee to be right every time and do not accept any legal liability or any claim of negligence as a result of the recommendations we might make.
 
Stay safe.

Michael Strelitz
02076072262