Category: Phishing

September 26, 2020

Time-Wasters Update

It’s nice of the TV Licensing authority to send me an email to remind me that the licence is due for renewal in 3 days and that I can renew online by clicking the link. Only problem is that the email is actually from test @moil.co.in which is an Indian domain name and obviously not the TV licensing authority, plus our licence isn’t due for renewal till next year.

The email, from IT Helpdesk, tells me that my email password expires in 1 day. Hence I must click to verify a new password. However, the email is actually from perfect-body.ro which is Romanian and clearly not my email provider.

Messages and adverts have appeared with strange titles such as ‘Global Crisis: People are raking in millions using Lewis Hamilton’s new APP’. Lewis Hamilton does actually have an APP but it’s simply some emojis based on his face. It does not make money for anyone. Don’t be conned.

Coraline sends me (and millions of other people) messages to tell the good news that Superlotto in honour of its 25^th anniversary is giving me free lottery tickets. NOPE. The email is from a Russian email address where most of the world’s scam messages are arising these days. No thanks.

An email from Samsung congratulates us on winning a new Galaxy S20 mobile. We just have to answer a few simple questions to receive our new smartphone within 72 hours. It’s an obvious scam as the email is actually from bodbend.com not Samsung. Plus, we didn’t enter any competitions, plus the sender doesn’t know our name, just an email address. If you haven’t entered a competition, then you cannot possibly win it.

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September 23, 2020

Phishing Tackle Website

Phishing Tackle at https://www.phishingtackle.com/ offer a range of online courses to help keep businesses safe from Phishing scams. These scams are where scammers send out messages (usually by email but can also be by text and phone call) claiming to be a trusted organisation e.g. HMRC, local council, Marks and Spencers, Nat West Bank, The Police and so on. They are after your personal information and especially login and password information and financial details.

Over 90% of data breaches are caused by an end-user clicking on a phishing email and Phishing Tackle say they reduce the risk of people clicking on phishing emails.

Phishing Tackle’s automated online security awareness training, simulated phishing and policy management platform reduces the risk of end-users clicking on phishing emails by over 90% – that’s the claim.

Website resources include:-

A click-prone test
Domain spoof test
Phishing quiz

And lots of information on various types of online scams.

Free Phishing Awareness & Training is available to not-for-profits in some cases.

They also offer a manged service to protect businesses.

The website is a good resource for those looking to protect their business from Phishing scams

If you have any experiences with phishing scams do let me know, by email.

September 20, 2020

Stupidest Spam of the Week Chinese Consultant

There are endless spam emails designed to get you to supply the scammer with your name, address, personal information and even financial information.

Recently a lot have appeared to be from China. This may be false of course, as most of these messages use personal email addresses (e.g. Gmail, Hotmail etc.) which anyone from anywhere in the world can get.

An example of the latest such messages – “This is an official request for Professional consultants from USA or UK only to stand as our official representative to run logistics on behalf of Shougang Group.”.

It goes on to say you will be paid $5,000 per month and will keep 10% of all charges to your customers.

Clearly, any legitimate company wanting representatives in foreign countries would go through a careful recruitment process, not send out bulk emails to vast numbers of unknown people.

The point of the message is to get you to supply them with a list of personal information specified at the bottom of the email and it even claims you can do the work while full time employed in your current job.

We really hope no-one responds to this very obvious phishing email or any similar ones.

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September 19, 2020

Time-Wasters Update

“Christian Healthcare Group” wants to offer insurance at a better price than the so called “expensive insurance marketplace”. Might be a good offer but it’s from an odd email address badpushposture.bid which should be an auction house but more likely belongs to a scammer. No thanks.

“A shocking new study shows that over a third of Americans suffer from arthritis”. That’s not really a surprise as arthritis is very prevalent in older people. The message goes on “The biggest natural pain relief cover-up in history”. That’s the standard scammer language – suggesting a conspiracy. “I’m about to show you what your doctor has been lying to you about”. This is all lies of course as the scammer has nothing of any value to offer.

A message that appears to be from the Dropbox service wants me to confirm my email address. This scammer has ‘spoofed’ their email address so it really does appear to be from Dropbox. However the link to click to confirm is the giveaway as it’s to ‘bibitca.net’ which is not Dropbox.

Another notification arrives claiming to be from PayPal and wants me to click to release my account. As the message is from payservices.org rather than PayPal – no thanks.

Apparently, my subscription for Photo Editing is due for renewal at only $4.99 per week. Click to manage the subscription. This is a simple phishing scam. Clicking the link brings up a login/password box and if I entered those details, the information would be sent to the scammer. Not for me.

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September 12, 2020

Time-Wasters Update

An invitation arrived by email to the radio station, apparently from Unilever. They are asking us to quote for supply of hospital ventilator machines. Yeah Right! Some scammer has gone to the trouble of buying domain name unileverglobalprocurments.com just for sending out these scam messages. Requests for tender that don’t match the products a business sells usually means the scammer is extremely lazy and is just looking for any kind of reply from surprised companies too dumb to realise its fake. Bad news.

Another fake invoice arrives at the radio station. This one makes no attempt to say what the invoice is for, just that it must be paid immediately to avoid penalties. The bottom of the email claims it is from Sheila Lugg, Finance Officer at MAAT but the senders email address is mail @ nrownifi.com. A standard scammer message that obviously wont be paid.

An email from Shawna Goudie claims to offer zero cost advertising forever free and contains a link to a website which does not exist. This scammer has forgotten to make the fake website before sending out the spam messages. It all sounds ridiculous and is to be avoided.

“Important Notice – Fix Incoming Email Issues” is the title for a phishing email message. It claims that multiple incoming messages are being rejected and we must connect to our email portal to recover the messages and fix the problem. There is a link which looks like it’s the radio station website but of course it isn’t. Just an attempt to get us to use our login and password on their fake screen.

Michael Reed wants me to accept bearer bonds worth £50 million from a client of his who died with no one to claim the money. The email is actually from malexjamass @gmail.com which doesn’t match his name, suggesting it is a scam but we know that already as someone offering a fortune to people they don’t even know the name of, is obviously fake. No thanks.

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September 5, 2020

Time-Wasters Update

An email supposedly from Nat West warns us that they believe there has been unauthorised access to our account and they have temporarily frozen our account till we confirm it is OK. However we don’t have such an account so it’s a scam message.

Free electricity is a very common theme for scam messages. This latest one starts with a warning “THIS IS DISTURBING. Power companies panicked when they saw this. Click to see this secret method”. Where this strange belief in America that there are magical ways to generate electricity at no cost is very odd and not really shared elsewhere in the world. The ways to generate electricity are all well known and involve taking energy from somewhere (e.g. sunlight, the wind, tidal movements, geothermal energy etc) and transforming it into electricity. There are no secrets and the only thing that is disturbing is that people try to steal from the vulnerable using this type of scam.

A message claiming to be from The Royal bank of Scotland says that there has been a mistake in calculation of our quarterly service charge and we owe £42,243.52. The point of the message is to get us to download the attached file which is loaded with malware. No thanks.

Another advance fee scam email arrives. Michael Reed says he has an investment of £50 million in bearer bonds for a client who has died and he wants to transfer them to my name. The email is actually from malexjamass @gmail.com so Michael Reed has an identity problem and doesn’t even know my name yet wants to give me £50 million. This seems less likely than Elvis being spotted doing a gig on the moon. No thanks “Michael”.

Alaa Hameed tells me his company wants to fund any company in any project / investment of any interest or choice as he is a broker with high profile clients from Asia wanting to invest. Is it possible anyone would believe this is true? His return email address is different from the senders address which is always a bad sign and that return address is an AOL address which means personal rather than business. Plus, he doesn’t even know my name. Pathetic.

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