How to Identify Suspicious Requests
Signs of a suspicious request
Certain characteristics repeat in the vast majority of social engineering attempts, regardless of the channel used: artificial urgency ("you must act now or you'll lose access"), requests for information the organization would never ask for through that medium (passwords, verification codes), pressure to skip a normal verification process, and subtle errors in domains, phone numbers or names that almost match the legitimate ones but not exactly. Another key sign is the mismatch between the channel used and the seriousness of the request: a bank account change requested over chat, or a dismissal communicated by SMS, doesn't fit the usual formal processes. Training yourself to notice this mismatch, rather than memorizing specific examples, is what really protects you against new techniques that aren't known yet.