Personalised email scams fooling experts

Email scams are becoming more personalised each day. So much so, that some more recent email scams are even fooling cybersecurity experts. Instead of the scattergun approach that many phishers used to take, email scammers nowadays search the internet and collect personal information that allows them to craft personalised emails. One such attack almost fooled Oliver Buckley, a cybersecurity expert, who received a personal email from his boss asking him to purchase gifts for a client – convincing, until Buckley noticed it was sent from an unknown Gmail address. While this might sound an obvious scam, enough fall for it – phishing cost companies almost £17 billion in damages last year. With more personal emails being developed, it’s more important than ever to carefully check the details of all emails received.