Internet Scams: How to Report a Fraudulent Email? Total Security

You open your mailbox and, as usual, a mountain of spam has piled up since your last log in. There are harmless spam emails, then there are the others: invitation to withdraw lottery winnings, solicitation of humanitarian organizations that you have never heard of or verification of a bank account of which you are not even a client ... Some fraudulent emails are easy to spot. Unfortunately, cub criminals excel in the art of fraud with increasingly sophisticated and very difficult to spot emails.

Faced with these scams, reporting platforms have been set up by the public authorities and professionals. Here's how to report a fraudulent email and tips to protect yourself from these increasingly common traps.

How to Recognize a Scam?

One of the most common email scams is called “phishing”.
You will receive an email in your mailbox that looks exactly like an email from an organization in which you have complete confidence (bank, tax administration, social security fund, etc.). you are asked to update or confirm following a "technical incident" your data, in particular your passwords, your bank account number, etc. Through this, the hacker recovers your confidential data and extracts money from you or impersonates you.

What if we started by Protecting Ourselves?

Here are some simple automatisms that you will need to integrate:

• Use strong passwords 

Exit your date of birth, the name of your dog or other passwords easy to guess for a seasoned hacker! Create passwords longer than 20 characters containing numbers, letters, symbols, and all caps. Never put the same password on all the sites you visit regularly: a site with a dedicated password. To make it easier to remember, create a common core for these passwords and decline it depending on the site.

• It's too good to be true

We contact you because you have won the lottery a large sum of money when you did not participate, you won a trip, you receive promotional offers that are far too tempting ... Do not click on the email or on the link that contains it! You could open the door to malware that infects your computer.

• Take a good look at the email and the nature of the request

The most sophisticated scams look like well-known and respectable sites and companies, such as banks and insurance companies. To spot a fraudulent email, it is often enough to read what it contains. A bank, for example, will never ask you to provide confidential information by email. The easiest way to be sure is to call directly.

What to Do When I Receive a Fraudulent Email?

First of all, do not reply and do not open any attachments, photos, links or documents contained in the message.

• Register on signal-spam.
• Download an extension for your email software or internet browser
• Report the fraudulent email in one click

Reporting these emails on the platform allows authorities to take action against cybercriminals. The CNIL initiates investigations, on-site inspections and, if necessary, sanctions.

Then, get rid of the emails by selecting the option "Mark as spam" then report the attempted fraud on the PHAROS platform available on

This platform also makes it possible to report websites whose content is illegal. This report will be transmitted to the specialized judicial police (OCLCTIC) which, if it involves international fraud, will forward them to Interpol.

And What if you Receive MMS or SMS on your Mobile Phone?

All you have to do is transfer the fraudulent SMS to 33700. It is an alert number created by hosts, operators and service editors with the State Secretariat in charge of industry and consumption.

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