Spam. Spam. Spam. Every time I open my gmail there it is. Another one… Delete. Another one. Delete. Delete. Unsubscribe. Delete. Unsubscribe. Delete. And so it goes. So much spam.
And whilst most of it is blocked – or filtered to the junk folder, they still get in.
In fact, over 56 percent of all emails are spam. That’s over 120 billion spam messages globally – costing businesses a massive 20 billion dollars every year.
But it’s not just annoying. Targeted campaigns, malicious messages and phishing attacks can hack your device, steal your identity, get into a system, bring down a company or steal your money.
So, how do these messages end in our inboxes? Isn’t spamming illegal – and how can I stay safe?
Joining me is Dr Kayleen Manwaring, Senior Research Fellow, from the University of New South Wales – whose article on: “Why do I get so much spam? And how can I get rid of it?” – was recently published in the Conversation.
Actually, I have a little story… we are all vulnerable… last week I was the victim of a deceptive phishing attack. I opened an email from what I thought was a legitimate, trusted source… from what I assumed was a service provider I’ve used for years. It looked good. All the fonts, spelling, logo, graphics, everything looked fine… So I clicked through to pay a 20 dollar annual renewal bill.
However… I didn’t have my glasses on, I was on my phone, I was a bit distracted, but I quickly entered my bank information into a legitimate-looking bank portal. I got sent an authorisation code. Which I entered into the portal. Clicked submit. Nothing happened.
I went to my laptop, took a closer look at the email and realised… yep… it was a scam. I could see on the bigger screen that the link I’d clicked was clearly not going to the trusted source – just a website address with a bunch of garbled letters and numbers. I froze!
I opened the bank app on my phone to cancel my card, change passwords etc…
But before I could do that, I got a text message from my bank telling me they’d temporarily cancelled my card – due to a fraudulent two and a half thousand transaction… so thankfully the bank protected me in that instance. But it can happen to anyone. Quite easily… cheers, Al