What do you do when you receive a scandalous mail? Do you believe it? You may identify such electronic hoaxes but some people can’t. Internet is a widespread medium to disseminate information whether good or bad, true or false.

As per a report published in the “Science” journal, about 1,26,000 stories in between the years 2006 and 2017, were retweeted over 4.5 million times on Twitter.

Anyone can publish information on the web. This might be because of the low cost, easily available internet or because of the presence of a number of social platform options.

Even incorrect and false information spreads in a flash of light. The researchers at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) reported that that probability of the fabricated information to be retweeted is 70% more than the authentic information. Similarly, the authentic information takes about 6 times more to reach 1500 people than the counterpart. Researchers also believe that fake news travel more because of the “Novelty Hypothesis”.

You should not believe things what others tell you. One should always consider pieces of evidence before believing. Ask yourself whether there is any scientific evidence behind the information being transferred or is it rational. Don’t believe everything just because it’s shared by your kith and kin or it is looking good and interesting.

Following are a few of the ways to protect yourself from email/web scams:

• Be a Critic: Don’t believe what you see or read. Always be a critic while reading anything on the internet. Question it before accepting. Rely on print media for more authentic information than the internet.
• Be a Smart reader: Always check the origination of the data you read. Any information or an article without an author is meaningless. Don’t open a link or download any content from unreliable sources. You may initiate a virus entry.
• Don’t immortalize internet scams and emails of skeptical origin by forwarding them.
• Don’t reply to the emails with obscure origin or peculiar email addresses.

If you want to protect yourself from internet scams then don’t consider what seems too good to be true.