Stay Safe Online - A Guide for Cottage Owners

As the internet evolves, scammers are getting more sophisticated.  Scams or phishing attempts are increasingly likely to come through as official looking emails (much like the scams and phishing emails we are used to seeing in relation to banks).  We've therefore put this guide together to help keep owners safe online.  

No longer can you rely on spotting dodgy English grammar or dubious sounding stories to alert you to scams or phishing attempts.  Scam or phishing emails can now look and feel like the real deal and appear to come from official sources. The name of the person sending the email may look completely legitimate, as may links in the email, but appearances can be deceiving!   Read our guide to help you to stay safe and learn how to spot these sophisticated scams.

Some golden rules will help you to stay safe:

Never open or click on links in emails or open attachments, unless you are sure of the source and expecting the email!

Never click on links or attachments from sources that you do not know or trust.  If anyone who is not a contact of yours sends you a link or an attachment this should NOT be opened.  Some of the more sophisticated scams doing the rounds rely on you opening attachments or clicking links.  At first glance these links may look legitimate but they may not be!  With emails, appearances can be totally deceiving.  Those sending emails with links or attachments may be aiming to spread viruses or phishing for your details.

If an email appears to be from a big brand company or organisation you use or are a member of or from an individual you haven't heard of or know, don't automatically trust it and treat both with the same level of caution you would an email claiming to be from the bank!

Treat all emails like you would emails from banks, with caution, particularly in relation to emails from big brand names or unknown individuals.  Why?  The scammers and people phishing for your details know which sites are big brand names and which sites people are likely to use.  We have recently seen some very sophisticated phishing emails that give the appearance of coming from big brand companies; examples include Paypal or Dropbox and on closer inspection are not from these companies at all.  Big travel websites are becoming an increasingly common theme for phishing attempts.  

Hence emails from big companies in particular should be treated with caution as they may not be from big brands at all.  There is no reason to distrust these big brands or their services, but you should navigate direct to their own websites via a search engine rather than clicking links in emails or opening attachments.
 

Appearances can be deceiving; just because an email looks official don't automatically trust it!

People are used to phishing scams from genuine-looking emails claiming to be from banks and know to treat these with caution.   Scammers are now turning their attention to big-brand names such as Dropbox and other large American websites, and these phishing emails at first glance look totally genuine and trustworthy, but may not be!

Think before you Click on any Links, is it worth the risk?

How can you tell if an email is genuine or not?  The short and simple answer is you can't easily unless you're quite a techie or have technical help.

So to stay safe, the best way to check out an email that you want to look in to but aren't sure whether to trust is just to navigate direct to the website in question via a search engine like Bing or Google and log in from there.  Or do the old fashioned thing, call the company or organisation concerned, by finding their official details on the web, they'll soon put you right.

People can send you emails pretending to be someone else (i.e. with a header than indicates that it is from someone or a company that it is not from).  Checking who an email is actually from can only be done by looking at the source code, which only techies are likely to do.  
Links in emails can also look like they are sending you to an official website but may take you to a completely different website.

If an email appears legitimate and includes links, to check if the links are legitimate you can hover (i.e. hold your mouse over the link without clicking) and pay attention to the website address.  But beware, some of these sophisticated scams are including a mix of links to dupe you (so some in the email will be to the official website and some will be to somewhere completely different) and some include links which include part of the official website address to totally confuse you, so it's hard for those who aren't techies to be able to tell if a link is legitimate or not (and even techies not paying full attention could get caught out!).  

The best way of staying safe online though is never to click on links or attachments on emails unless the email relates to a recent conversation or interaction with a trustworthy source.
 
 

Be Password Savvy!

Having different passwords is a pain we all feel.  It is really annoying but unfortunately nowadays it's really essential to have unique passwords for different accounts and websites online to stay safe.   

Always ensure that you have different log in information for the different holiday websites and other websites that you use.  Your own email accounts should also have a unique password.  Using a combination of upper case, lower case and numbers leads is recommended for secure passwords.

The reason for having different passwords is simple; if you have the same log in everywhere, if you were to fall victim to a phishing attempt or scam, the person with your details can then do far more damage if they are able to log in to various websites or accounts you have, than if they are only able to get in to one.  

If you receive a scam email, delete the email.  
    
 

Use Virus Protection and Run Regular Scans on your PC

There are various virus protection programmes out there that will help you keep your PC virus free.