{"id":454,"date":"2022-06-08T15:56:31","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T19:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heliotropicsystems.com\/blog\/?p=454"},"modified":"2022-06-08T15:57:05","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T19:57:05","slug":"all-scams-all-the-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heliotropicsystems.com\/blog\/index.php\/all-scams-all-the-time\/","title":{"rendered":"All Scams. All the Time."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this particular \u201cscammers\u201d edition of Sun Spots<\/em><\/strong>, I will share a few recent emails from clients asking about the validity of the contents. I also want to direct your attention to a feature-length article from Wired<\/strong> magazine\u2019s March 2022 issue that contains a third-party discussion of what happens when someone is an unwitting victim of a phone call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One client forwarded me an email about urgent warning about his Norton anti-virus license.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He uses AOL, which doesn\u2019t let you see \u201cbehind\u201d the email address unless you explicitly look for it; fortunately, Outlook does. But this is such a piss poor example of fraud it isn\u2019t even funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The email return address is justforconsumers.com<\/strong>, which doesn\u2019t resemble Norton at all! The links in the email route to http:\/\/aoolldearbox.bond<\/strong>, which is not a secure website. Worse yet, if you click any link, you are re-directed to a website hosted by aquaticbees.com<\/strong> (definitely not Norton). That page has a warning about an increase in \u201cMalware and Viruses.\u201d Click on any of the links on that page, and I\u2019m certain your computer would be flooded by tons of the stuff they \u201cwarn\u201d you about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, of course, he has SentinelOne with his SPF+ subscription, not<\/strong> Norton!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This email is fraudulent; it should be marked as \u201cspam\u201d and then deleted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another client returned from a recent vacation to find an email with the subject, \u201cYour order has been confirmed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attached was a PDF file that resembled an Amazon invoice indicating that a payment of $769.99 had been received for a \u201cSAMSUNG 55-Inch Class QLED 4K UHD Dual LED Smart TV with Alexa built-in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also included the following information:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to cancel or modify this purchase and want to claim your money back. Please call us Immediately to our Billing Department : +1- 877-542-2099<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s forget, for a moment, the atrocious grammar and punctuation. Let\u2019s ignore the email address that isn\u2019t from Amazon.com. This email and invoice features one of the more insidious scamming aspects. It requires you<\/em> to call them<\/em> to ask for assistance. The moment you do that, you are an active (unwitting) participant, and \u2014 if you are not careful \u2014 will be providing con artists and thieves with your personal information. I cannot stress how important it is to DELETE garbage like this immediately!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This leads me to the Wired article: They Were \u2018Calling to Help.\u2019 Then They Stole Thousands.<\/a> Take the time to read this, and if you have any questions afterward, please let me know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks, and safe computing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this particular \u201cscammers\u201d edition of Sun Spots, I will share a few recent emails from clients asking about the validity of the contents. I also want to direct your attention to a feature-length article from Wired magazine\u2019s March 2022 issue that contains a third-party discussion of what happens when someone is an unwitting victim …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,49,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everyone","category-scams","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heliotropicsystems.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heliotropicsystems.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heliotropicsystems.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heliotropicsystems.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heliotropicsystems.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.heliotropicsystems.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":455,"href":"https:\/\/www.heliotropicsystems.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions\/455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heliotropicsystems.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heliotropicsystems.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heliotropicsystems.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}