• Phishing is the fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies in order to get individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
  • To prevent phishing you have to be able to recognise it. Emails attempting to get your personal information are a giveaway, but you should be cautious about receiving unexpected emails from friends as well.
  • Signs of a suspicious email:
    • Poor grammar or spelling mistakes.
    • The email is addressed to a group of users, a shared mailbox or to a distribution list rather than being addressed to you directly.
    • Immediate action required or a sense of urgency communicated e.g. your account will be deleted if you do not respond to this email.
    • Fuzzy or blurry images.
    • Sender's email address does not match the company it purports to come from.
      • Computershare email addresses will generally match our websites, for example @computershare.com, or will match with an additional country code, such as @computershare.co.uk.
      • Some Computershare emails may come from @e-computershare.co.uk.
  • If you receive an email that looks suspicious, DELETE it without clicking on the links or opening attachments.
  • Be cautious about opening any attachments or downloading files from emails regardless of who is sending them – if it is a link to a website, you should hover the mouse over the link in the email and look carefully at the web address to make sure it is genuine – including that the company name is spelled correctly. Type web addresses into your browser rather than clicking on links.
  • Be aware that links and attachments can also carry spyware, so even if you are not asked for personal information this can be obtained via a Keystroke Logger which can record the keys you press when typing.
  • Remember the email may look legitimate, but legitimate businesses and financial institutions will never ask for personal information via an email.
  • Although phishing is generally used when talking about email, phishing attacks are also common on social media sites - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more.

Here is an example of what a phishing email could look like:

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