Research conducted by B9 Systems Ltd. on 200 internet-users show that 78 have fallen victim to phishing emails at some point in their lives. These emails aren’t always as obvious as you may think, with scammers becoming more skilful in recent years in creating emails that appear legitimate and therefore more effective.
Phishing emails come from fake websites that mimic a credible source’s sign-in procedure to trick you into disclosing personal information.
B9’s system works to prevent hackers and stop your personal data from being shared online, and it is our aim to help in the fight against phishing, malware and viruses.
B9 carried out research to find out the tell-tale signs of these phishing emails and found that the most distinguishing factors of these emails were: illegitimate-looking email addresses, bad spelling/grammar, requests for personal/financial information and links attached from unknown contacts.
Stuart Spice, director of B9 Cyber Security Systems, commented:
“There is an alarmingly high percentage of people we surveyed who have fallen victim to phishing, considering 82% say they are aware of what phishing emails are. With the right antivirus software, these can be blocked, and data breaches prevented, but users still need to be vigilant about what information they share online and especially over email.”
Of the 200 internet-users that took part in the survey for B9, we asked what they would look out for to identify phishing emails and the results were as follows:
- 27% say that an illegitimate or dodgy-looking email address would give them a reason to believe it was a phishing email.
- 42% of people said that any emails they received from companies requesting personal/financial information off them it would be a red-light warning.
- 19% believed any emails with links attached would make them question their legitimacy.
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Cyber Security company, B9 Systems, was founded by Stuart Spice in November 2017. It aims to help users remain GDPR compliant after the recent changes in law and ensures protection from malware, phishing and viruses. For more information on B9, visit us at www.b9s.net