In the last week I have seen a 100-fold increase in emails dealing with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, or Kindness Day. I wish I could say all of these were legit but some are not. They are all designed to get you to click. In the social media world, that is referred to as click-bait. Anything to get you to click. The problem here is this is your email and you could compromise your business systems with one click.
I am not currently wearing a tinfoil hat and think that conspiracies arrive in every email, however, at the holidays, we get a lot more liberal with the clicking. We lose our sense of judgment mostly due to FOMO (fear of missing out). Don't think the bad actors out there don't use this time of the year against us because they do. I have seen many carefully crafted phishing emails lately designed to get you to click. A couple of "I wasn't thinking" steps and bad people have access to your company email, network, or your computer.
We are especially bad when it comes to those dreaded mobile devices. We access them wherever and whenever and because it is a phone, we think we have less to worry about. Not so fast my friend. The last few times I know that company systems were compromised...yep, by way of a phone, after hours, away from the office when some us shut off that defensive mind we have.
I will give you my life example of a real thing that looked bad that came to me via text real late at night (bad decision-making alert). I got a hit on one of my cards tied to my bank about an unauthorized Walmart charge...I check my Walmart app and don't see anything so I decline it...boom, going to need a new card. Right then, a separate credit card gets a similar alert...I'm still like No. Now need a new credit card. Turns out my Walmart + membership was renewing and it was using any card tied to my account (which I had one more). Try going out of town with no debit cards or credit cards. Oopsie. Too late at night and I was just not paying attention enough to remember that renewal. In my defense, it was after midnight and my momma says nothing good happens after midnight. Perhaps that night I was wearing a tinfoil hat after all.
Let me encourage you to slow down and consider the worst thing that can happen if you click a bad link. I'll be honest, there are some links I just will not click on my phone. I will check my computer so I can look at the sender address (which is not so easy to see on a phone, but they are counting on that). For sure, if you click something, never ever provide any personal information, login credentials, bank info, birth dates, etc. If you are unaware, everything you do with an email is still trackable (although Apple lets you opt out of that).
Be cyber-safe and careful and a have a safe and happy holiday season.