What’s old is new again. And what is it that’s new again? The venerable old jury duty scam. Apparently, it’s making the rounds again, so be on the lookout.
According to Scamicide, this is how it works. “Generally, the scam starts with a telephone call that you receive purportedly from a law enforcement officer informing you that you have failed to appear for jury duty and that a warrant has been issued for your arrest. You are told, however, that you can avoid arrest and greater fines by purchasing gift cards and then sending photographs of the gift cards to the phony law enforcement officer to prove that they have been purchased. You are then told that you should then mail the gift cards to the local Clerk of Court’s office.” Gift cards? Really?
The latest Threat Intelligence Report is out. Its findings are based on an analysis of 195 billion emails analyzed from January through June 2020. Of that large number, an astonishing 47% were flagged as malicious or spam.
It won’t come as a shock to learn that there were two main themes in the threatening emails this spring. According to HelpNetSecurity, “Two main trends ran throughout the analysis: the desire for attacker’s monetary gain and continued reliance on COVID-19-related campaigns, especially within certain vertical industries.” From the report, “One of the most significant observations of this research is that threat actors are launching opportunistic and malware-based campaigns across multiple verticals at volumes never seen before.”
The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server is a communication protocol or the technology behind email communication. In other words, SMTP is the protocol that allows you to send and receive emails. Every SMTP server has a unique address and needs to be set up in the mail client that you are using. If you are using SMTP host Gmail for example, then the SMTP address is smtp.gmail.com. If you want to find the address of the SMTP server you are currently using, you can easily find it in your email client settings.
After 89 years, the Washington Redskins are losing their team name. But, that’s not the only thing that got lost this week. So, too, did people’s money who tried to purchase the suddenly-hard-to-find merchandise.
According to Scamicide, “the termination of the old name and the refusal of major retailers such as Amazon, Walmart and Target to sell Redskins jerseys, caps and other merchandise carrying the old name and logo has created a demand by many people seeking to purchase the soon to be rare merchandise with the old name and logo. While there are legitimate sellers of these items, scammers have also sprung into action and have set up websites offering the merchandise at bargain prices. Of course, these bargain prices are no bargain because after you order the merchandise online, the merchandise never comes.” Maybe you should wait to buy a new jersey.
It’s 2020, which means it’s time for another Presidential election in the U.S. The big question is, who will win? But an even bigger question is, will we be able to trust the outcome? There are evil forces out there who’d love nothing better than to manipulate the outcome of the election for their own purposes. And what way are they most likely to do that? Through phishing, of course.
SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a primary communication protocol to transfer emails between servers. An SMTP mail server uses a relay service to communicate with another SMTP server. Mostly, SMTP email servers are ideal for outgoing email updates, newsletters, and website notifications. SMTP relay service is a means to make these frequent email communications much more efficient with a web application, WordPress website, and a custom domain address. Email communication efficiency significantly impacts an organization’s day-to-day functions.
Amazon Prime users beware. There’s a scam out there and it’s direct right at you. According to Tech Radar, “The scammers target victims via an automated telephone call claiming that they have opened an Amazon Prime account and that they should ‘press one’ to cancel the transaction. However, doing so will connect the call to a fraudster posing as an Amazon customer service representative.
If you take an email security awareness training class, you’ll learn a dozen ways to spot phishing email. There are a lot of clues. Maybe the email contains poor spelling or grammar. Or maybe it contains an offer that’s just too good to be true. All of those are giveaways. But there is one clue that’s a more reliable predictor of a phishing email than any other one: the “from” address. If you truly know who the email is from, you’ll know whether or not it’s legitimate.
It’s always good when you can get a heads up on scams coming at you. This one courtesy of TechRepublic. According to an article there, here are the phishing email subject lines you need to be on the lookout for:
Password Check Required Immediately
Vacation Policy Update
Branch/Corporate Reopening Schedule
COVID-19 Awareness
Coronavirus Stimulus Checks
List of Rescheduled Meetings Due to COVID-19
Confidential Information on COVID-19
COVID-19 – Now airborne, Increased community transmission
There are a lot of companies that depend on their employees to stop phishing attacks. In effect, their employees are their last line of defense. Seeing as how the cost of phishing attacks is now in the tens of billions of dollars per year (nobody knows the exact amount since victims are so reluctant to come forward), it seems like the employees stopping phishing attacks thing isn’t working too well. And now we know why.
