Viruses are more sophisticated and causing more damage than ever. Most viruses people are downloading today can’t be removed. The only way to “fix” them is to restore your computer from a back-up that was taken before you caught the virus. Without a good back-up, these viruses are essentially death sentences.
There is no antivirus program that can prevent this new class of targeted attack, because when you agree to download a file or enter your information, you are bypassing the antivirus all together. So once again, we stress, the only way to protect yourself is to learn how to recognize a scam when you see it.
New Threat # 1—Airline Identity Theft Scam
Last week, a client who’s email we host called in requesting that we whitelist a sender whose messages she wasn’t getting. Apparently, Delta Airlines was trying to email her the plane tickets she ordered so she could download them. She had been talking to the “Delta Rep” on the phone and he let her know that she should call Dynamic Edge because the messages were getting caught in our spam filter.
This sounded phishy right off the bat because I’ve bought a plane ticket before, and there is no “ticket download email”. Sure enough, our spam filter prevented the delivery because it recognized the attached files were viruses…and bad, identity theft ones. Like, wake up and your bank account was emptied by an international criminal viruses.
When I told her those emails weren’t coming through because they were viruses, she was shocked because she had been dealing with the “delta sales rep” over the phone. I asked her where she got the phone number to contact the “delta sales rep” and she informed me it was in an email he sent her.
With a little Googling, I found different variations of these airline phishing scams are rampant right now…and they seem to be working. Luckily, she called us just in time to avoid a disaster.
New Threat # 2—Phony E-Lottery Winner
Above is an example of another phishing scam Bruce got in his email recently. The three numbered arrows are how you can tell this is a dangerous email.
- Phony Email Address: This email is supposed to come from MasterCard, but the “From:” line says this email came from “web.info1003@rogers.com”. Now, this is a dead giveaway that this email is bogus, but it won’t always be that easy to spot. Hackers can easily disguise who the email came from. If you question an emails actually origin, you can call us and we can check behind the scenes where it was delivered from.
- Word Doc Attachment: Word Documents (and just about every other file type) can contain mini programs that run when opened. These mini programs install malicious software on your computer. Safe rule of thumb, don’t open attachments without double checking. Either call who the email supposedly comes from (don’t use the number in the email!), or, for Fixed IT clients, just give us a call.
- Phishy Content: Too good to be true offers are a dead giveaway. The hackers are trying to get you to respond without thinking. This message says you won a million dollars and you just need to open the file (a word document ha!) to confirm your credit card number. Sounds ridiculous right? People fall for these every day.
The problem we face at DE is that we can’t tell you exactly which emails are going to be bad, because the attacks are constantly evolving. Once an attack is common knowledge, our spam filters have already been programmed to catch it. But hackers come out with new attacks daily, and they are constantly using new methods for ripping you off. The best way to save your data and your identity is to be skeptical of every email. Don’t click on things. Don’t open attachments. Don’t enter your personal information. And know that you will never win a million dollars. And if you do, you won’t find out about it in an email.
