How to stop phishing emails on Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo

How to stop phishing emails

Phishing attacks have become so sophisticated that it is easy to be misled at first glance, accidentally open a phishing email, and click on a malicious link. Fortunately, email security is improving rapidly as well. Email platforms constantly update their spam filters and formulate new methods to defend users against phishing attacks.

No matter what precautions your email provider takes, it’s still a difficult task to stop phishing emails permanently. However, you can learn some tactics to better protect your personal or financial information from a phishing scam.

Read on to learn more about how to prevent phishing attacks. It doesn’t matter if you use Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo — we’ve got you covered. And if you access your email on your phone, all these instructions will also work on your mobile device.

Stop receiving phishing emails on Outlook and Hotmail

Outlook.com features anti-phishing filtering technology to prevent users from falling victim to a phishing scam, but you can take additional steps to increase your email security. Since users access Outlook and Hotmail accounts through the Outlook.com platform, the methods to stop phishing emails are the same for both of them.

Here’s how to prevent phishing attacks on your Outlook and Hotmail accounts:

• Customize your spam filters. On the Outlook platform, you can enable “exclusive” mode to only accept emails from your contacts list. If you notice suspicious activity and think you may have received a phishing email, you can block messages from certain email addresses or domain names by adding the sender to your blocked senders list. Be sure to flag any suspicious emails containing a generic greeting, grammatical errors, or a shady link as junk as well. This feedback helps Microsoft to improve email security.
• Report phishing emails. When you spot a suspicious link in an email, report the attempted phishing attack. To do so on Outlook.com, click “Junk” above the reading pane in the message, then “Phishing,” then “Report.”

Stop receiving phishing emails on Gmail

Like Outlook.com, Gmail is designed to protect users from receiving phishing emails. It uses advanced security to warn you about suspicious messages and fake websites. You can use this platform’s tools to keep personal information, like your Social Security, credit card, and bank account numbers, safe.

Here’s how to protect your Gmail account from phishing messages:

• Check if the email is authenticated. Gmail uses email authentication methods to ensure that a message is coming from the person the sender claims to be. If an email isn’t authenticated, a question mark will appear next to the sender’s name. This means the message might be a phishing email and you should be wary of replying or downloading attachments.
• Use Safe Browsing. Chrome offers an extra layer of protection called Safe Browsing, which warns you about phishing, malware, and other online threats. To turn it on, open Chrome, click the three dots in the upper right corner, and go to “Settings.” On the left, click “Privacy and security,” then “Security.” From there you can select the protection level you’d like to use.
• Report suspicious emails. If you receive an email that seems suspicious, report it to Gmail. You can do this by opening the email, clicking on the three dots (More) next to the reply button, and selecting “Report phishing.” This helps Google improve its security measures and protect other users from similar threats.

Stop receiving phishing emails on Yahoo

Yahoo Mail catches most phishing emails with its spam filters, but emails containing suspicious links can still slip through. Users have also reported instances of spam bombing, in which hackers flooded their inboxes with emails to prevent them from seeing important emails, such as those regarding recent bank account transactions. Hackers likely had tricked these users into clicking seemingly legitimate links in phishing messages and then sold their sensitive data, like Social Security numbers and payment information, to other cybercriminals.

Here’s how to stop phishing emails on Yahoo Mail:

• Mark phishing emails as spam. Whenever you spot a phishing email, remember to mark it as spam. That way, Yahoo will know to route future emails from that sender straight to users’ spam folders.
• Pay attention to phishing alerts. Yahoo Mail will let you know at the top of a message when something looks “phishy.” If the email is legitimate, just click “It’s safe.” Otherwise, click “Report.”

Why do I keep getting phishing emails?

You’re probably getting so many phishing emails because your email address has been shared publicly, leaked, or sold to people looking to profit off your personal information.

When you sign up for a service or make a purchase online, you often have to provide your email address. This email address could have been collected and sold to third-party marketers who use it to send out spam emails.

How do I block and report phishing emails?

To prevent phishing attacks, always report phishing emails. Each phishing attempt you flag is another weapon in your email provider’s arsenal to help it catch these cybercriminals.

You can also forward emails to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (reportphishing@apwg.org). APWG is an international organization that works to reduce and prevent phishing scams, malware attacks, and other cybercrimes.

It may seem like a lot of work to stop phishing emails, but you don’t have to do it alone. Phishing protection software offers advanced protection against phishing emails. NordVPN’s Incogni service can also send data removal requests to over 180+ data brokers on your behalf to stop people from profiling you.