How to avoid being scammed

There are many ways to try to get hold of other people's personal data and money.  Criminals are constantly inventing new and trickier ways of phishing. Some of them target a large number of people at a time, while others are tailored to a particular person.  

You can protect yourself against phishing by applying the following basic principles

• Be very careful and circumspect about links found in messages. The links many contain malware which can for example steal information from your device or upload content to it if the malware succeeds in installing itself on the device.
• Never upload anything to your device from elsewhere than an official application store. Even there it is wise to find out about the pricing and the terms and conditions of the application. Keep your applications updated. 
• Don’t give your user credentials, bank identifiers, personal data or any other personal information to anybody else. You need this information when identifying yourself or signing into different services, but nobody has a valid reason to ask you for this information. 
• Your operator, bank and other service providers never ask for your information and user credentials on the phone or by e-mail. There is a scammer behind such enquiries. 
• The scammer want to scare you or to get you upset or excited so that you would be vulnerable and fall for a scam. That is why they tell you to hurry, warn you of a danger or tell you about something unrealistically good.  They can try to convince you that something needs to be taken care of instantly or you would lose something important such as your user rights to your online bank or your e-mail, a considerable prize, or a large amount of money.