Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Most of us have learned to be skeptical of just about everything that comes into our email inbox. Still, every year, people get duped out of billions of dollars. Turns out, cybercriminals are using specific trigger words to rip folks off more successfully in email scams.
An analysis by email platform, ZeroBounce, has found the following are the top five "dangerous email words": income, investment, credit, billion and free.
These are the five words that have the highest rate of people clicking through a scam email.
What the words have in common is they are financial-trigger words. Criminals know people react fast when money is on the line. Money can also make folks feel desperate.
"Take a step back," cautioned former FBI operative Eric O'Neill, author of "Spies, Lies and Cybercrime." "Don't give in to the emotion."
O'Neill said email scams are getting harder to spot.
"Deepfakes are changing the way all of this works," he said.
Gone are the days of scam dead giveaways.
"With AI, now those emails are pristine. The prose is perfect. The grammar is perfect. There's no spelling mistakes. The logos look great," O'Neill explained. "And so, it's a little harder to spot the deception."
The five words considered the most dangerous in email scams, of course, are not the only words used to target us. But knowing them can help you spot a scam.
"So, the defense is to not give in to urgency and pressure. These are the biggest tools of a cybercriminal," O'Neill said.
And here's a simple habit that experts say is effective: Before you open an email, ask yourself one question — "Did I expect this email?"
If the answer's "no," treat it like a scam.
