Fraudsters will always be on the look out for ways of getting access to your personal information - it's valuable and can be used for identity theft.
The easiest way to get your details is through phishing scams. These are attempts to trick you into giving your account, banking, log in, password or other sensitive information.
The phishing scam emails will look like they've been sent from us, your bank or an online service you use and will ask you to reply with your account details, or to click a link to a website, to enter them.
We'll never send you emails asking for your account, password or log in details.
Luckily, you can stay safe online by following a few simple cyber security guidelines:
- Always keep your BT account number, log in and password information secure.
- Keep all your other personal information, such as bank details, private at all times.
- Make sure you've an up-to-date firewall & anti-virus program installed on your computer.
- Don't click any links in an email you're not sure about.
- If you do click a link and you're taken to a website, don't enter any information - close it down immediately.
- Don't reply to a phishing scam email or try to contact the senders in any way.
- Don't open any attachments in a phishing scam email.
- Delete phishing scam emails from your computer.
- If you get an email or visit a website that doesn't seem right, trust your instincts and leave.
Think you've already submitted personal details? Act quickly to protect your account by getting in touch with the organisation or business involved, immediately.
If the phishing email looked like it was from us and you've submitted your BT password, username, account number or any other sensitive information, change your password straight away and get in touch now - to get our contact details, click on the 'Contact us' link on this page.
Want to report a suspected phishing email? Forward it to phishing@bt.com, and we'll do the rest.
To find out more about internet safety, cyber security and the latest phishing scams, the following organisations work with police, government and fraud agencies:
And, although geared more towards your personal online safety rather than your business, there's information about the latest scams and internet safety at bt.com/scams.
Keeping your passwords secure
Here are some tips to keep your passwords secure:
- Change your password from time to time.
- Avoid using the same password for everything you do.
- Try to avoid using real words, for instance by inserting some numbers into your password.
- One way to create a password that’s easy for you to remember and hard for others to guess is to use a mnemonic. Think of a short phrase that's very well known to you and use the first letter of each word in the sentence as your password. This will usually result in something unpronounceable that's not in any dictionary, so would be hard for others to guess.