If you accidentally click on a phishing link or open a malicious attachment, please follow the steps as mentioned below:
1. Firstly, disconnect your computer from the Internet. You can unplug your ethernet cable or disconnect the Wi-Fi. Once malware infects a computer, attackers can use the Internet to control the device remotely. Sometimes the malware also self-replicates and spreads to other devices on the same network. So, it is important to disconnect the computer from the Internet.
2. Next, take a backup of all important files so that you can restore the important files to your computer at any time if needed.
3. Now, use a trusted anti-malware program(s) and run a full scan. If any infected file is detected, please follow the instructions to quarantine.
4. Now, you should change passwords of your email or social media accounts. In case the malware was able to access any of your accounts, it should not be able to access it again if you change the password immediately. Please note that it is always advisable to use a different computer to change the passwords.
5. Enable 2 Factor Authentication wherever possible. 2 Factor Authentication or 2FA uses one more authentication factor. Most websites use an OTP sent over the user’s mobile phone as the second authentication factor. So, if you enable 2FA, then an attacker won’t be able to access your account even if the attacker manages to hack your password as long as the attacker does not have access to your mobile phone. So, 2FA is much more secure.
6. If you are a victim of phishing, you may want to report it. It will help the authority in catching the cybercriminals. And, if you clicked on a phishing link using your company laptop, then please report the incident to the concerned person in your company.
7. You may also want to flag the email as phishing. This will indirectly help the spam filter to filter out potentially dangerous emails in a better way. Spam filters often use machine learning to learn about the characteristics of malicious emails and use that to filter out potentially dangerous emails. So, if you flag spam or phishing emails, that would help the spam filter to filter out such malicious emails in a better way.
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