If your organization is the unfortunate victim of a phishing attack that leads to ransomware, you have a very important decision to make. Should you pay the ransom or not? The answer depends in large part on how much the ransom is. Hackers are smart not to ask for so much ransom that not paying it seems like the best alternative.
Did you know AOL was still around? Us either. Not only is it still around, but apparently, it’s being used in a phishing attack. According to Scamicide, “Today’s Scam of the day is about a phishing email presently circulating that attempts to lure you into clicking on a link in order to continue using your AOL account. If you click on the link two things can occur and both are bad. Either you will end up providing personal information to an identity thief or you will, merely by clicking on the link, download dangerous malware such as ransomware on to your phone, computer or other device.” Now you know.
Email hosting is a desirable provision for all growing and established businesses. This is because it helps them achieve their managerial and organizational targets much quicker than the conventional system of communicating via established web-hosting services. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol or SMTP refers to a set of guidelines used by servers, to ensure that emails are sent to the end receivers faster and without any scope of miscommunication, or failure in email delivery.
Ever since the pandemic, phishing attacks on Amazon have skyrocketed. Afterall, more people are shopping online. Such is the case in Taylorville, Ill where “A new email phishing scam is making its way to people’s emails, according to the Taylorville Police Department.”
According to the report, “An email that looks like it’s from Amazon said there was a problem renewing their Amazon Prime Account. The email then gives the user a prompt to find the documents attached to follow on-screen instructions. The instructions then ensure there isn’t a problem with the renewal by gaining personal information.” Yeah, it’s a scam.
I hope to never receive an email from the United States Supreme Court. It couldn’t possibly be good news. I would be very suspicious. But there is one small group of people who, if they received such an email, might not be suspicious: C-suite executives. And that’s exactly what some hackers thought as they targeted such individuals with a zero-day credential phishing attack impersonating the Supreme Court.
That email alert from DHL telling you your package is on the way. Yeah, it’s a phishing scam, but it’s a little more relaxed than you might expect.
From Naked Security, “The crooks are following a much more relaxed formula that doesn’t say much more than, ‘Hey, here’s how to track your delivery,’ which is the sort of message you might reasonably expect when you order something, or when someone orders something for you. They aren’t in it for the money up front – indeed, they never intend to bill you at all, because it’s your personal data that they’re after instead.” That can be just as bad.
Sometimes, phishing scams are so obvious you anticipate seeing them before you actually see them. And many of these are the direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first phishing scam to be on the lookout for is anything associated with a “contact-tracing” app. Contact tracing is a “method used by scientists to slow the spread of infectious outbreaks. During the pandemic, anyone sufferers might have been in prolonged contact with will be traced. Those contacts may then be asked to self-isolate.” The first country to produce an app to do this was the UK.
SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. It is a protocol used for sending emails from one email account on one mail server to another email account on another mail server. The other protocol also used for the purpose is IMAP, which is the abbreviation for ‘Internet Message Access Protocol’. The recipient’s system then accesses the sent emails by using IMAP or POP3 (Post Office Protocol version 3).
Email marketing is essential for modern-day enterprises, and SMTP servers are necessary for conducting marketing campaigns. SMTP refers to the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, a communication protocol that enables an email client to carry out effective message delivery. SMTP follows a specific path known as SMTP relay to send emails to the correct receiver who was targeted by your marketing campaign.
Do you use Adobe Cloud? Have you received an email saying you’ve been sent files via Adobe Cloud recently? If the answer to both is “yes.” you’ve probably been scammed.
According to Hoax-Slayer, “the email is a phishing scam designed to steal your email account password and has no connection to Adobe. If you click the link, you will be taken to a website that appears to host a business-related spreadsheet. However, the spreadsheet is greyed out and a pop-up box claims that you must enter your email password to gain full access. If you do enter your password, it will be collected by the scammers and used to hijack your email account and any online services that are linked to it.” Keep safe out there.