[NFBofSC] Good E-mail Practices

[Marty McKenzie]

Good Evening All,

The below e-mail was sent to us at my work regarding e-mail. As you all know, I have been spoofed several times in the past year. Following the below steps will help you identify when an e-mail is real and when it is spoofed.

As the holidays are approaching, Information Technology would like to give you some good practices when receiving emails from anyone (even people you talk to on a daily basis). Below are some common ones but it's not limited to just these.


  1.  Is it really the person that it says it is? At the top of the email it will show the sender "name". This is easily spoofed. If you click on the senders name it will allow you to see the email address that it came from. JAWS users can pressalt+1 using the Microsoft Outlook client to get this information.
  2.  Were you expecting an email from that person and/or is it something that they would ask for? If you were not expecting an email from the sender or if it has links or attachments, it is recommended that you reach out to the person by a known phone number. DO NOT USE ANY NUMBERS ON THE EMAIL. One way to do this is to look up the number by going to the senders website.
  3.  Are there common misspellings in the subject or body of the email? These are common with Phishing and Spam emails.
  4.  Is it Urgent? This is a well-used tactic for getting people to respond and it works frequently! If it is urgent, reach out to the sender directly using a known number, not one on the email. One example that I have seen often is someone pretending to be from the government needing personal information.
  5.  Does it sound too good to be true? Always think that it is. Most of us have heard of the "Prince" that is trying to give away their inheritance.

It is a good thing to be suspicious when receiving emails. It is not a good practice to assume that just because you know the person that there will not be anything bad in the email. Unfortunately, all companies are susceptible to being attacked. You can apply these to other forms of communication as well.

Thanks,

Marty

Marty R. McKenzie, President
National Federation of the Blind of South Carolina
119 S. Kilbourne Road
Columbia, SC 29205
Phone: 803-254-3777
Mobile: 843-939-8091
Web Site: www.nfbofsc.org<http://www.nfbofsc.org>

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