Spot the Phish

5th January 2023

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a UK government organisation, has published a useful guide on how to recognise and report scam emails, texts, websites, adverts and phone calls.

We are all familiar with the term phishing but may not be aware of how prevalent it is: in December 2023 the NCSC received more than 27m reports of scams and were able to remove 161k scams across 295,3000 URLs.

It seems that you can't rely on IT security measures alone and so it is critical that users remain vigilant. The global cybersecurity company Darktrace reported that, in 2023, 65% of the phishing emails that they observed had by-passed Domain-based Message Authentication (DMARC) verification checks and that 58% of these messages passed through ALL existing security layers.

The NCSC has the power to investigate and take down scam email addresses and websites, so it is important that people know how to recognise and report a suspected scam. Reporting a scam is quick and easy and by reporting a phishing attempt you will:

·       reduce the amount of scam communications you receive

·       make yourself a harder target for scammers

·       protect others from cyber crime online

For more information and details on how to report a scam go to: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/phishing-scams