We are all fairly comfortable with going to our bank's site, entering our user details and accessing our financial data or carrying out various bank-related tasks. What better way is there for unscrupulous people to get crucial user-related information like your login name and password than to present you a page that looks just like that of your bank? Unsuspecting users will then type in their username and password at this page and the information is collected and sent elsewhere. This is known as phishing.
How are users tricked into visiting a page that does not belong to the bank? By sending them an official looking email that pretends to alert them to an urgent matter related to their bank account. This email will contain a seemingly authentic and legitimate link to the bank site but is in fact just a copy of the bank's site. As mentioned earlier, the unsuspecting user types in the login information that is then misused.
It is therefore important that you are always on the lookout for such mails and also take extra precautions through your email client to filter out these phishing emails. Outlook in particular offers you features that enable you to save yourself from phishing scams.
You can very easily enable phishing email protection that comes pre-built with Outlook. For this, first select Tools -> Options from the main Outlook menu. Once you are in the Options window, click on the Preferences Tab. Here click on the 'Junk E-mail'' option. Now in Options, ensure that you have checked the box next to 'Disable links and other functionality in phishing message'. You have now enabled Outlook to protect you from suspected phishing emails. Even if you are in a hurry and access a suspected phishing mail, Outlook will disable the link contained within the email. You are thus prevented from accidentally clicking the link and giving away important information.
Another important step towards securing your email would be to make sure that you have easy access to software that can actually repair Outlook. Many times phishing emails manage to access your Outlook email account and either steal your data or just use your email account to spam others. Sometimes, your emails or other data may become inaccessible. Powerful software like Advanced Outlook Repair from DataNumen will help you to repair Outlook and recover email messages including mail attachments.
Along with software that can repair Outlook, you would also be advised to install good anti-spyware and anti-virus software to protect yourself from many of the spywares. Further, you should make sure that you have enabled Microsoft Update. Running it automatically will ensure that you have all the latest Office and Windows security updates. While these may not actually prevent a phishing attack, it will certainly provide you with more Outlook security.