The latest Phishing Scam Targeting Business Owners and How To Prevent it

Agave Studio breaks down some of the Defenses You Can Use to prevent spam messages about copyright infringement

Spam is the worst. Well, depending on your tastes it might not be, cooking-wise of course. Agave Studio has had a handful of clients email and message us about the latest scam targeting business owners all over the United States: a very scary email saying that your business has infringed on someone’s copyright with a link to evidence. First of all, we at Agave Studio use the amazing resource Unsplash to most stock photos, which are royalty free, so our clients can be sure no images on their site are infringing on anyone’s rights. Second, DO NOT CLICK THE LINK. You run the risk of installing malware on your computer or phone that can potentially steal your information. Below we break down a few of the ways to prevent these messages from even getting to you in the first place.

Ignore the Messages

The first thing you can do is simply ignore the messages. If you’re confident you’ve not infringed on anyone’s copywritten work, it’s pretty easy to just ignore these messages and report them as spam to Google or your preferred email provider. Though, we would all like less scams in our inbox right?

Set Up Google Recaptcha On YouR contact Form

Another great tool that Google offers is the ReCaptcha widget. This is the “I am not a robot” box asking you to select the traffic lights whenever you submit a form or log in to your account on a website. This can be a little cumbersome for your potential visitors, but it is commonly understood that you are not only protecting yourself with this, but your potential clients as well. If you’re on a Squarespace site, they have a fantastic help article on how to get Google ReCaptcha set up on your site. Agave Studio provides this as a complimentary service to all of its clients as well!

Use A Third-Party To Create Your Contact Form

Here at Agave Studio, we use the amazing Honeybook to create our “Start Your Project” form on our contact page. Usually, having a longer form without a section to add a message will deter any of these potential scammers. Honeybook also offers the upgraded Google ReCaptcha V3 on all their forms, which will stop these phishing scams in their tracks.

Overall, these messages can be very scary especially since they’re trying to steal your information, but with a little protection you can protect yourself and your business. Of course, Agave Studio is always here to help you through these challenging times. Let us know in the comments if you’ve experienced any of these scams and if you’ve implemented any protections for yourself!