It is increasingly difficult to distinguish between legitimate phone calls and scam phone calls. Scammers use ever more sophisticated deception methods to convince people to reveal personal information such as an account password or credit card details. One example of these sophisticated methods is described in this Krebs On Security article about phone phishing.
To help you avoid being tricked by a scammer, Apple details what to expect when you interact with a member of Apple’s support team. This article outlines how Apple might ask you to confirm your ownership of your Apple Account. It also outlines what Apple will not ask you to do. By learning what Apple will and won’t ask you to do, you’ll be more tech-savvy and thus less likely to fall for a scam.
Additionally, Apple encourages you to report suspicious emails, texts or phone calls that you receive that claim to be from Apple or a financial institution. Take screenshots of unusual notifications you receive to document what you see. Then forward email messages and screenshots the email addresses listed in Apple’s support article.
To protect yourself, I think everybody needs to continue to learn about the types of scams that are used and continually employ ever stronger defenses including these two security fundamentals:
- Turn on two factor authentication on all of your accounts
- Use unique and complex, but memorable passwords on each of your accounts.
(Featured image by Adobe Firefly)