We have launched a new Report Phishing feature in order to improve the security of the entire ProtonMail community.

Phishing scams are among the most effective kinds of online attacks. Cyber criminals create emails that try to get you to click on malicious links, download malware, or send sensitive information, such as your login credentials or banking information. Phishing attacks can target any email account, and encrypted email is no exception.

Today we’re announcing a new tool called Report Phishing to help defend the ProtonMail community from these kinds of attacks. When you receive a phishing email, you can now easily report it to our security team. This will allow us to perform analysis and update filtering rules to protect the entire ProtonMail community. This article explains what phishing is and how to use the Report Phishing feature from your web browser or ProtonMail mobile app.

What is phishing?

An email phishing attack is a type of scam that uses legitimate-looking emails to trick people into giving up their account credentials or downloading malware. Some phishing emails can be extremely sophisticated, using social engineering tactics or a forged “From” address. They might appear to come from someone you know or companies you trust.

Unexpected requests for banking or other personal information should be treated extremely suspiciously. All legitimate emails from ProtonMail will be automatically starred in your Inbox; if an email claiming to be from us is not starred, then it is a phishing attack. Learn more about preventing phishing attacks.

How to report email scams in ProtonMail

The most important thing about phishing scams is to NOT click on any links or download any attachments. If you receive a phishing email, please report it because that helps us keep everybody in the ProtonMail community safer.

We have now made it easy to report email scams from within your ProtonMail Mailbox. If you receive an email you believe to be a phishing scam, click on the “More” arrow button on the right side of the ProtonMail web app. Then choose “Report phishing” from the dropdown options. In the iOS and Android apps, tap on the “More” button in the top right of the screen while a message is open, and choose “Report phishing” from the menu.

In the web and mobile apps, click “Confirm” in the popup window that appears. Clicking “Confirm” means that you give ProtonMail permission to analyze the message and header information to improve our spam filters.

By leveraging the vigilance of millions of ProtonMail users, we can all now do our part to help improve the security of the entire community. Thank you for your support.

Best Regards,

The ProtonMail Team

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