Do you know the main reason why computers are infected by malware? It is the spam email that entices people to open malicious attachments or click on infected websites.

The Federal Office for Information Security informs: Current survey results show that spam emails are still the main reason for computers being infected by malware: 75 percent of companies affected by ransomware were infected by malicious email attachments in the last six months. This is the result of the latest survey conducted by the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI)[ 1 ] by the Alliance for Cyber ​​Security.

The effects range from the infection of individual workstation computers to the failure of parts of the IT infrastructure to the loss of important data. Common cause: E-mail recipients open their electronic mail too carelessly.

The risks can be reduced with a 3-second security check. Sender, subject and attachment are three critical points that should be considered before opening every email. Is the sender known? Does the subject make sense? Is an attachment expected from this sender? In combination, these questions provide a good starting point for deciding whether the email can be classified as trustworthy.

In many spam emails, the subject is deliberately worded vaguely, such as “your invoice”, “reminder” or “urgent message”. Here it is particularly important to question critically whether a message from the respective sender seems sensible, especially if email attachments are attached. For example, if you receive an email with the subject “Invoice” from an online shop with which you are registered without expecting an order, this could be an indication of a spam email.

Question every email: If checking the three checkpoints sender, subject and attachment does not produce a coherent picture overall, the BSI recommends deleting emails before opening them. If in doubt, you should personally ask the sender whether they sent an email before opening it.

via BSI for citizens


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )