How ‘forwarding’ can help in the fight against phishing fraudsters

When receiving a suspicious email from an unknown number or contact, simply deleting it from your Inbox is arguably the easiest option.

But thanks to a recently launched service, forwarding these suspicious and potentially fraudulent links is helping in the fight against the increasing issue of phishing.

The advice from Action Fraud is to forward any suspicious emails to a designated address, without of course clicking on the links or just pressing the delete button.

Almost 21 million reports have been made to the Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS), resulting in the removal of over 235,000 malicious websites.

SERS was launched by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the City of London Police in April 2020 to enable the public to forward suspicious emails to an automated system that scans them for malicious links.

Since its launch, almost 21 million reports have been made to the service – which uses the email address report@phishing.gov.uk

And in a two-pronged attack, mobile phone providers also offer a service that allows customers to report suspicious text messages, by forwarding them to the number 7726.

The service is free of charge and enables providers to takedown malicious websites and block malicious texts from being sent across their network. A good idea is to keep this number handy at your workstation.

As of 31 May 2023, 54,000 text message scams have been removed as a result of suspicious texts forwarded to the 7726 service.

Here’s some practical advice you can follow when it comes to dealing with phishing scams:

1. If you have any doubts about a message, contact the organisation directly. Don’t use the numbers, addresses or links in the message – use the details from the organisation’s official website. Remember, your bank will never ask you to supply personal information via email.
2. If you think an email could be a scam, you can report it by forwarding the email to: report@phishing.gov.uk. Send emails to this address that feel suspicious, even if you're not certain they're a scam - we can check.
3. Always report suspicious text messages or scam call numbers free of charge to 7726. Your provider can find out where the text came from and block or ban the sender.

If you’ve lost money or provided personal information as a result of a phishing scam, notify your bank immediately and report it to Action Fraud at www.actionfraud.police.uk or by calling 0300 123 2040.