Common types of cyber scams and how to avoid them

Phishing

Phishing is a common type of cyber scam that targets a victim through email. They provide a link to the victim and ask them to click on it. After clicking to that link, malware gets installed in your system, through which they can gain access to personal information. There are various types of scam, and identifying them is quite tricky. Phishing scams have multiple types, and spear-phishing and whaling are common among them.

Do not click on links, if you don’t know the sender of the email.
Contact the sender through other means of communication to verify the content.
If the email asks for personal information than ignore it.
Check the URL of the links before clicking on it.

Vishing

Vishing is another type of cyber scam in which the cybercriminal targets the victim over the phone to extract personal and sensitive data. This is a social engineering technique, where the attackers pretend to be a trusted company and leverage urgency to get victims to act quickly without thinking the situation through. A victim may receive a call, that their bank account, computer system, or other software has been compromised. To solve the problem, they will further provide links to specific software and ask you to install it. They may ask for credit card details, bank account, and other personal information.

Never provide your personal information to an unidentified person over the phone.
Banks, companies like Microsoft, etc. will contact you personally to avoid malware.
Don’t respond to phone calls that ask you for personal information.

Smishing

In this type of cyber scam, the victim is targeted through a short message system (SMS). Through the social engineering technique, the victim is tricked into downloading software, which is a Trojan horse or virus onto their phones. Links are sent to the victim, which installs malware after getting clicks.

Do not click on links sent through SMS, and from an unidentified person.
Do not respond to SMS, which asks for personal information.
Be aware of urgent messages which ask for immediate action. do not react to them

Pharming

Pharming is a common type of scam, in which malicious code is installed on a personal computer or server, and misdirecting the victim to fraudulent websites without their knowledge. It is also called phishing without a lure.