Phishing is the phenomenon where scammers secretly use the name and corporate identity of a company to obtain private information from customers. Think of the login details of a bank account.
Phishing is a growing problem for entrepreneurs and their customers. How can you prevent your customers from falling victim to scammers who send emails or text messages written in your company name?
What is the SAFE rule?
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The SAFE rule is a four-point checklist that the recipient of an email or text message must go through before clicking on a link in the message. You can use the SAFE rule to check whether an email or text message is phishing.
The letters ‘SAFE’ represent the first letter of each point.
S writing style
Your customer should first check whether the email or text message is written in good Dutch. Many phishing messages are created with the help of Google Translate. And Google Translate does not always ensure flawless texts. Does your customer see language errors in the message that he supposedly received from you? Do the sentences seem a bit crooked? Then your customer should be on his guard. He may be reading a phishing message.
Sender
It is easy to spoof the sender of an email or text message. Nevertheless, a lot of phishing is sent from a random email address. In the latter case, your customer can easily check whether the message really came from you. After all, you would never send an email from [email protected] or a similar nonsense address.
F ake link
If your customer has any doubts about whether the message written in your name really came from you, it is better not to click on a link. It is also not wise to open an attachment. Your customer can check where a link leads without having to click on it. All he has to do is move his cursor over the link (without clicking, of course). In the lower left corner of the screen, your customer will see the URL where the link leads to. Is this not your company’s website? Then your customer should not click!
and Privacy
Analyzing an example using the SAFE rule
Like any sensible entrepreneur, you would never ask for login or bank details by email or text message. Is this requested in the email or text message? Then your customer can assume that he is reading a phishing message.
The email below is a prime example of phishing.
Three of the four elements of the SAFE rule apply to this email:
The sender ‘s email address is alarming. Before the @ sign is a random sequence of numbers and letters. And after the @ sign is ‘intel.com’. Strange, PayPal is sending an email address from another company’s domain name. Does PayPal really have such an email address? Surely not.
When I moved my cursor over the ‘Log in to PayPal’ button, I saw the web address at the bottom of the screen that the link leads to: www.3o2.co. It is unlikely that such a strange website is really the PayPal website. So this is clearly a fake link .
And this email also contains the element of a violation of ePrivacy . It explicitly asks to share very personal documents via the link. A company like PayPal would never do this.
The only thing that is correct about the email is the writing style. It is written in good English. However, that does not inspire confidence in me now that I know that the email fails three other checkpoints.
Conclusion: I’m reporting this email as spam and moving it to my trash without clicking any links!
Do you see how important the SAFE rule is? If I hadn’t looked at this email critically, I might have actually thought it was from PayPal. And who knows what the consequences would have been.
So let’s take a look at how you can make your customers aware of the SAFE rule.
How can you inform your customers about the SAFE rule?
By email
This is the most obvious one: send your email subscribers an email telling them how to distinguish your real emails from phishing emails.
For example, Itsme, the app of the Flemish government, has already sent an email in which they inform users about the SAFE rule:
If every organization and company sent such an email to its customers, there would be far fewer ignorant souls who would fall victim to phishing.
Via text message
Does your organization regularly send text messages to buy investor database customers? Then you can also use this medium perfectly to create awareness about phishing. The big disadvantage of text messages is unfortunately that you can’t easily convey a long message in it. It is therefore mainly suitable for sending a short, powerful message, for example the point about ePrivacy.
Via social media
Make your customers aware of phishing via social b2c lead media. The fun thing about social media is that you can get the message across in a creative way. Don’t just write a text, but also create a catchy image or an interesting video.
In your shop or office
Does your company have physical locations where customers come? You can also educate your target groups about phishing there. Hang posters in strategic places or hand out a flyer.
Want more tips on how to keep your online marketing spam-free? Contact me. Motionmill has over twenty years of experience in making digital media safe.
