With the Christmas just around the corner many people will be ordering from overseas. As part of the online ordering process many companies use email to confirm orders and provide updates. The spammers know this and take advantage of the increase in this type of email by sending out their “ware” hoping to catch people. Most anti-spam systems do a very good job of blocking these, but some still gets through.

The common thread among phishing emails to watch out for include:

unfamiliar transaction report from a familiar business
an attachment with no explanation in the message body
“phishing” or asking for your email password
asking you to “log in” to obtain something

Looking into the messages’ headers can prove helpful but this is a little more technical and is best covered elsewhere. So enjoy the festive season and remember not to respond to emails from companies that you didn’t ordered from.