How to spot a phishing email

what is a phishing email?

A phishing email is a type of scam whereby an email appears to come from a legitimate source and seeks to obtain sensitive or even personally identifiable information about you. The emails usually create a sense or urgency and ask you to click a link to verify your bank details for example.

How to do I spot them?

This is a phishing email that was sent to me by a friend asking if it was legitimate or not.

PayPal phishing email

There are a number of signs which give away that this is a phishing email:

1. The subject of the email would not contain details of the transaction such ad the transaction number, nor would the subject of the email contain an emoji.
2. Any emails sent from PayPal will address you directly. This email starts with "Hello".
3. The recipient email is a mail-chimp email address suggesting that this email was sent to a mass mailing list.
4. There are links in the email probing the recipient to click them and log into their PayPal account; the links most probably go to a phishing site designed to harvest user credentials. 

If you are ever in doubt head to PayPal's website, directly by google search and check your account. DO NOT CLICK LINKS OR ATTACHMENTS! 

If you are unsure if you have received a phishing email please visit action fraud here.