Identifying suspicious emails
In today’s all-inclusive world with multiple devices, multiple account setups, and giving your email to every give away you’re interested in, it’s obvious as to why email is such a highly targeted area for hackers. Recently I’ve noticed my email receiving an abundant amount of…. interesting emails. Some of them coming right to my inbox! Well me being the curious type, I’ve decided to take a look at them. In my analysis of these emails I hope you’ll gain some information to protect you from getting hacked or your information stolen. Let’s get started.
Each email consists of a sender, usually a subject, and the body of the text. The first important thing to look at is who it’s from. Take a look at this picture below:

A couple of questions popped into my head: “Who is this, and why are they sending me an email?” Now, what’s interesting is that I am android user and I don’t even use any Apple products. That was the first flag. But what if you are an Apple user? Well, when evaluating the sender a good list to go through is:
- Do I know where this is from?
- Does this have to do with anything I am currently using at the moment? (Ex: Apple, Microsoft, Android, etc.)
- Why are they sending me this email?
You can easily justify emails that are sent while you’re at work because they most likely have connection with something or someone you’re working with. So, maybe the sender is someone you trust, what then?
Well, Let’s head into the body!
The body of an email that is suspicious will usually have several signs. One, it will ask you to click on a link, or have clickable links themselves. Just as in this picture:

Now you might say, “Wait a minute! If someone is buying stuff off of my account I want to know. Why is that so bad?” Well, usually it isn’t. But several red flags are blatant in this picture:
- Whenever you get a suspicious email it will often time have an ultimatum. See the “Make sure you cancel this before 24 hours after the transaction” part? That pressures you, the recipient to most likely make a quick decision. Which in this case is click on the link, which has the potential to be malicious.
- One thing that clearly gives this email away is the absolute atrocious spelling job and grammatical mistakes. “Cancle, If this not you who did it, etc.” Which is another red flag when dealing with emails that most likely have viruses, malware, etc. A lot of times these emails aren’t always safeguarded with correct spelling, and so this can make it easy to spot.
You might be saying, “well this is all well on and good, but what about emails that have good spelling, a good source, and I trust them, but they end up being bad! What then?” Ah, good point. There is a wave of emails that are being sent out that are more sophisticated from hackers to avoid filters, and these emails seem very legit. One of the few tips I can give you is, when in doubt, ask someone who knows. Someone who works in cybersecurity (or networking, etc.) at your company isn’t going to shame you ( or, I at least hope not! ) for being suspicious of an email. Obviously him or her, would be more open to helping you identify this bad email, then run the risk of you getting malware or a virus on your computer!
P.S. A cool website that has become popular to see if you’re email has been involved in a breach, which allows hackers to go through these breaches and start spamming you is: https://haveibeenpwned.com/
This informs you and helps you know where your email is. And one more recommendation, if you think a certain account has been hacked, including your email, it’s a safe bet to just go ahead and reset your password.
I hope this has been helpful for you, and if you want give me a follow on Twitter! https://twitter.com/0xinitjolly Where I tweet about nerdy things from computers, to hacking, to polls about who would win in a cook off! Have a great day!
