Have you received a suspicious text message or email? Deleting the message is not enough

The report “Digital security of Poles” prepared by SMSAPI shows that over the last six months, nearly 54 percent of adult Poles received suspicious messages from fraudsters impersonating courier companies, banks or tax offices. Another 12 percent people are not sure whether they received such messages. Experts believe that the scale of the problem is even greater than the declarations of the people surveyed suggest.

Interestingly, only half of the respondents confirm that they have ever received suspicious content. It is hard to imagine that an active Internet user does not receive this type of messages at all, e.g. as a result of phishing attempts, as an encouragement to click on dangerous links.

– explains Leszek Tasiemski, Vice President of Product Management at WithSecure. – Paradoxically, this may mean that for some respondents, this type of content is so common that it has become part of the information noise, so they do not even pay attention to it – adds the expert.

Sources of knowledge about cyber threats SMSAPI

The SMSAPI report also shows that Poles still lack awareness and knowledge about online threats. Surprisingly, over 46 percent of respondents do not know what phishing is, and 30 percent of people cannot distinguish real messages from those prepared by fraudsters.

Have you received a suspicious message? Removing it is not enough

When we receive a suspicious message, we should under no circumstances click on the links contained in it. It is best to delete such a text message or e-mail, but it is worth reporting the content to the appropriate institutions first.

Some time ago, the CERT Polska team launched the number 8080, to which suspicious SMS messages can be sent. In turn, other phishing attempts (e.g. via e-mail or instant messaging) can be reported at incident.cert.pl.

Once we report and delete a dangerous message, it is worth informing people around us about it. As our study showed, for more than half of respondents, family and friends are the source of knowledge about this type of threats

– explains Maja Wiśniewska-Hardek, Head of Marketing at SMSAPI. – It is especially worth informing older people about attempts to impersonate institutions that are commonly trusted – such as a bank, post office, energy supplier – as they are often less aware of digital frauds – adds the expert.

Source of knowledge about cyber threats SMSAPI

Phishing continues to take its toll. How not to be deceived?

Phishing is a method of fraud that involves impersonating a known person, company, organization or institution. The goal of fraudsters is to gain the trust of a potential victim and force him or her to provide, for example, personal data, account password or credit card number.

Phishing campaigns are usually massive. Fraudsters send identical e-mails or text messages to thousands of people, hoping that at least a small part of them is waiting for a parcel from an online store or using the bank they are trying to impersonate.

So how can you protect yourself against phishing? First of all, you should use the Internet wisely. Before we click on any link received by e-mail or SMS, it is better to make sure which website it actually leads to. A crafted website is usually embedded in a foreign domain or its address differs from the address of the original bank website or website.

But what if, through inadvertence, we have already fallen into the trap of phishing? You should contact your bank immediately and request a block on your account. If we react quickly, there is a good chance that we will anticipate the actions of criminals.