The Spear Phishing vs Phishing Email That Tricks You At Work
Spear phishing vs phishing Email Scams are constantly evolving and getting more and more sophisticated. Now there is a new scam out that can possibly trick you into the scam.
I wonder if there will be any trust left in us when we receive any email or text ?
Being ever vigilant each day on the email’s we receive has become a daily routine for most of us.
We need to get the message out there as much as possible. Educate people not to open or respond to emails that ask for verification. If a website wants to update it’s records then it will ask you when you sign in.
Never give personal information or security passwords to links in emails or callers phoning from any bank or anything, If they want your details then say you will phone them yourselves.
Not long ago a lot of us could identify a scam quite easily. We would not believe the too good to be true money prizes wins or the heartfelt pleas for money.
If you look at the the present day scams out there you can be fooled.
If you are caught of guard as they come across quite ordinary as emails, text messages and even social media adverts.
With emails always check the email address and you will see it is not a correct address of the business you deal with.
For example, paypal scams normally have paypal spelt wrong. Along with a series of letters and numbers. Whenever paypal want information from you then they ask you when you log in.
Social Media Scams
There are a lot of social media groups on Facebook such as adverts advertising business opportunities. These are more or less multi level marketing schemes you pay up front for. People need to know the difference from a business opportunity and a job offer. You don’t pay for a job where a business you will have start up fees.
A good way to see if a business opportunity is legit is to see if you get a free trial to it before you invest. If thats for you then checkout my review on Wealthy Affiliate where you can do just that! – Wealthy Affilaite review
Action Fraud
Last week Action Fraud announced that there is a new scam. It tricks people while they are at work and it has been labelled spear phishing.
“Action Fraud is the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cyber crime where you should report fraud if you have been scammed, defrauded or experienced cyber crime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.“
How Does It Work?
The Spear phishing vs phishing that tricks you at work. It involves sending an email that to you appears to be from someone you know. The aim again is to get at your personal information by tricking you. It wants you thinking it is from someone you know.
Action Fraud explained that a recent case of this tactic was to sent to an individual by email while at work. From what they thought was an email from a work colleague.
The sender was requesting a new faster payment system to process payments. However the attachment in the email did not contain any malware virus but includes fake bank details.
The aim is for the victim to send the payment to the wrong bank details so when it bounces back and they contact what they believe to be a co-worker to notify them then the scam artist sends real bank details back via email to receive the payment.
You can imagine, thousands of emails get sent out. Everyday a few are successful. as it comes across as very routine and far from sinister.
As I mentioned before a good way to spot these emails is to check the email address as the address will be slighlty different to your works email address so If you are in work I urge you to always double check this and always double check with a co-worker first epsecially over payments.
Criminals are always evolving new tactics to trick out of our money, They remain faceless hiding behind their keyboards however cyber security is catching up and does find criminlas hiding out on the dark web as very recently a global gang was couaght and jailed which you can read here: Cyber Gang Jailed
Scams can come through anymeans of contact, the most common is via email or phone calls but there are now scams coming through as text messages, websites and even companies that you are familiar with.
Never cooperate with any request for personal information that they try and persuade you to hand over your private details or money, downloading something will almost certainly infect your computer with a virus to extract information.
I have had this and I never respnd to the emails or text messages, I simply log in to the organisations website through my own search bar and if it is legit then a notification with pop up.
Never actually open the email fully just delete it as with the text messages.
I have had my bank phone me on occasions and I have refused to cooperate. Instead I politely explain that I will contact the bank myself and go through to the necessary department. This does take a while but I’d rather do that than risk the call being a scam.
Advice from Action Fraud to help you to protect yourself:
- Never assume that anyone who contacts you, is legit.
- If a phone call, voicemail, email or text asks you to make a payment.
- You will find that banks and other financial institutions will never email you for passwords.
- If you receive a call from someone who claims to be from your bank, don’t reveal any personal details
I hope you all remain safe with this new spear phishing vs phishing scam that is out there.
if you have any experience with this scam then please let me know in the comments below.
stay safe!
Darren