Email scams continue to plague businesses no thanks to most of those emails looking far too convincing. While it’s true that many fake emails look like they’re from official sources, statistics keep reminding us that personnel in businesses still can’t tell any difference. Recently, McAfee did a study showing only 3% of those surveyed correctly identified an email scam. This means 97% of all businesses will likely be fooled this year once again.

The implications of the above are sobering, yet you still have some clues available to help you scope out the fakes. Your best bet is just being circumspect about all emails. Still, you have to find a middle ground so you don’t end up deleting an email that really is important.

The Problems with Spear Phishing

A major concern now are targeted spear phishing scams many businesses receive daily in their email boxes. These get designed in a way where only one to a few get sent out to one company so they look unique. It makes it tougher to know if they’re a phishing scam because so few of them are out there to research.

With this new concern, it’s best to call a colleague if you see a private email from them claiming urgency. Anything overly urgent likely won’t get sent casually in an email, so confer with your employees when you’re not sure.

Other Subtle Signs of Email Scams That Never Waver

One sign of an email scam that never ends is poor grammar and spelling mistakes. If you write documents in your job, you know how to scope out subtle grammar problems. Many email scams have those errors in the title, or the email itself is in broken English. Cyber criminals from overseas frequently have challenges in their English writing and wouldn’t be from one of your co-workers or a professional company.

Emails asking for personal information is another surefire sign of a scam. Because of the awareness of so many email scams, companies needing personal information from you would most likely reach you in a more private way than an email.

We’ll help protect you from these scams here at Global IP Networks with our comprehensive IT services. Contact us so we can help your business run more efficiently with proper IT management and security.