Another day at work.
Sifting through a hundred emails, carefully avoiding to click on the suspicious ones that might be spam or even worse intentioned phishing emails. DE just sent you an update on recent phishing attacks and you are up to speed with some of the current email tactics.
You’re completely informed and know how to deal with suspicious emails.
It’s 2 pm and after getting a pick-me-up coffee to round out the day, you return to your desk and realize a message from Microsoft on your computer. It says: “Your computer has been infected. Please call 1-888-643-9730.”
You dial the number and talk to a representative that thanked you for calling and told you she was going to walk you through fixing the virus problem on your machine. She would be removing the virus for free, but needs you to buy a $99 antivirus product to make sure the infection was completely removed.
You agree.
She then gives you some instructions—You first install a few simple programs to clean up the infection. Then you change a few permissions to “allow the software to clean up the infection on your computer”.
The rep is very patient and walks you through all the steps. The most helpful person you’ve talked to today. Once the installs were finished, all you had to do is restart Windows and everything would be fixed.
The FACTS:
What you overlooked was that this helpful rep was a cybercriminal calling from who knows where. They now have access to all your files and passwords. Saved bank account logins. Important business documents.
From here, the criminals may choose to encrypt and ransom your files. Or they may opt to drain your bank accounts. Sell your data. Steal Your Identity! There are countless nightmare scenarios that might come from this. You Have Been PHISHED!
Once the hacker is in your system, you never know how vulnerable you’ve become. Sometimes their scheme will be to charge you hundreds of dollars to install free antivirus software, but often criminals will also install trackers on your machine. They want to track your logins and passwords, or even scout out sensitive information to ransom or sell.
These popup scams are growing in popularity. Don’t be surprised if this hypothetical story comes true soon! And this phishing tactic has started to affect our clients that don’t have proper protections!
According to the National Consumers League website, tech support scams are one of the fastest growing phishing schemes. And even some of our customers have fallen for them!
What does this mean? You can’t be careful enough when it comes to scams.
If you’re a DE customer and have any suspicion that you’ve been infected, call the Dynamic Edge number and we’ll make sure everything is okay. We’ll clean up your computer if it needs help—that’s what you hired us for!
But You Can Avoid Becoming The Next Phishing Victim By Getting Shielded Protection!
We can also make sure these phishing events never put risk to you, your team and your organization by stopping them before they have a chance to cause serious trouble.
Please Contact Cheryl Gholson on our team today to set up a cybersecurity meeting. And be sure to forward this message to everyone you know—because you should take phishing very seriously!
