Phishing schemes are designed to gain access to someone’s account to steal personal information, gain a financial advantage, or both. As a business owner, it’s more important than ever to protect your data and know what to do if your personal or business Facebook profile has been hacked. Unfortunately, a common scheme involves receiving emails that appear to be coming from Facebook. Learn how to identify a scam email.
How Online Phishing Scams Work
Phishing is an increasingly common online scam. It involves sending out emails that appear to be from legitimate sources in the hopes the recipient will open the message and follow the directions.
Many people use Facebook, so it’s a common scam. Someone will receive an email that looks like it’s coming from the social media giant. It might warn the person or business that they’ve violated a rule and must click a link to keep their page from becoming disabled.
If you click that link, it will take you to an official-looking form asking you to complete some personal information. You will be asked to give your login credentials, name, phone number, and other personal details. Hackers use this data to steal accounts and even identities.
How to Identify a Scam Email from Facebook
If you don’t know what to look for, these emails can appear legitimate. But there are several ways you can identify a scam email from Facebook:
- Sender’s email address — Your email program should allow you to view the sender’s actual email address. According to Facebook, anything other than facebook.com, facebookmail.com, or fb.com are scams.
- Poor spelling and grammar — Many of these messages are filled with typos and poor grammar.
- Sense of urgency — There is always a sense of urgency with a scam. The hackers want you to feel as if you’ve done something wrong and must act quickly to fix it.
- Suspicious links — Scams usually involve clicking on links and providing personal information. Either of these two are red flags.
Ways to Avoid Facebook Phishing Scams
You can avoid Facebook phishing scams by simply not replying to emails from anyone claiming to be the company. If they need to contact you, they generally do it through the platform. If Facebook does send you a warning about its Community Standards, it usually doesn’t warrant a response.
As a general rule, never click on attachments or links in emails unless you are 100% sure you know the sender. And never share your login credentials to any sensitive site via email. It’s simply too risky. Finally, you can set up two-factor authorization for logins and ask for alerts if anyone else tries to log into your account from an unregistered device.
Get Help Connecting With Your Audience With Credible Digital Marketing Solutions
The last thing you want as a small business is to get scammed by some criminal or lose potential clients because your own marketing efforts appear suspect. When you form an alliance with a trustworthy partner, you can forget about those types of concerns.
At visionPATH Marketing, we understand that a large portion of your audience is spending time on social media and other online platforms. We can help you get found and chosen by your target customers through results-driven solutions. We believe in “strategy before tactics,” meaning we’ll never recommend a service you don’t need to achieve success. Contact us today for more information about our services.