Christmas is coming and so are the crooks. In the last week, we’ve seen one email account hacked and a new phishing attack.
You should all have a fire-walled computer and be running one (and only one) good anti-virus program that is regularly updated. You also need to be aware of the behaviours the crooks try to exploit using social engineering.
If you get an email that is from someone you don’t know, don’t open it. Ignore it. A genuine sender will find another means of contacting you.
Never click on a link in any email from any source, but especially banks and building societies, that says there is a problem with your account. If the email is addressed to your email account (Dear fred.blogs@moneybags.co.uk), that’s a fair bet to be a con. Even if it is addressed to you by name (Dear Mr Bloggs), use discretion. Preferably, search for the companies email using a web browser and contact them by phone or email to the number or address you find there.
Hovering your cursor over a hyperlink in an email will flag up the real URL of the recipient. This again will give you an indication of whether or not this is a genuine site or not.
Take the latest phishing attempt on BT customers. You may receive an email like the one below:
So, its purportedly from someone with the username lenmurray61@btinternet.com – that’s odd for an email from a large company. There would normally be further details in the signature block. Here we just have BT Team. The email is addressed to “Dear Subscriber”, not a named individual and its not even clear if its been sent to your email address. Hovering your cursor over the Click here to verify hyperlink, produces the grey pop-up box shown. This shows the real address to which you are being directed (https://crazicrow.co.uk………..). This really doesn’t look like a BT site, now does it?
If you click on the link you will probably asked for your BT email account and password and guess what, you will be told that your account has been verified.
A few days later, the crooks who are now armed with your email account details and password will take over your account and lock you out of it. They will search you emails for banking details and other bits of useful information and will try to hack into other accounts you might have – like your online banking. As a ridiculously high percentage of internet users use the same simple password for every site they visit, the chances are they are on to a winner. they will have a very merry Christmas indeed – at your expense.
Please be careful out there