SCDCA Cautioning End-users about Phishing E-mails

SCDCA warns that online-scammers masquerading as the government organization OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) or credit monitoring firms are dispatching fraudulent, phishing e-mails while deceiving consumers into giving away sensitive personal information, published wspa.com dated January 29, 2013.

Taking advantage of people's anxiety following a hack into the computers of the S.C. Department of Revenue, last autumn, when cyber-crooks stole the personal data of innumerable Carolinians, the most recent e-mail scam has been crafted.

Actually, a large number of consumers have been accessing the State of SC's credit-monitoring services provided for free via Experian ever-since the hack.

Currently, fake e-mails are circulating posing as Equifax while telling recipients they require knowing their "falling credit rates".

Using captions such as "Your score has dropped" or "Identity Theft Alert," the e-mails make an effort for drawing the recipients' notice. And when the e-mails are clicked, the message inside advises the reader for checking out his reduced credit score by following a given web-link, explains SCDCA.

Juliana Harris a SCDCA Spokeswoman says that the agency has been forwarded a sample electronic mail although she's sure that other spoofed e-mail scams are attempting at victimizing those Internet users whom the security hack has affected, reported southcarolinaradionetwork.com dated January 29, 2013.

However, certain tips from SCDCA for consumers towards maintaining their information secured include: 1st, they must confirm about the e-mail. Whenever any business communicates with them through e-mail, they should contact the firm immediately via the correct details and confirm the e-mail's authenticity. 2ndly, they mustn't follow web-links within e-mails nor take the same inside their Web-browsers for if the e-mails are phishing messages then they could have software which damages the computer else monitors the user's Internet-operations. 3rdly, they should verify if the sender's ID or URL address is genuine. Incase these contain many characters like in admin@m78mail.com then consumers should be suspicious as it doesn't resemble yahoo.com, gmail.com etc. 4rthly, they should check the grammar of the e-mail's text. A sentence like "You might be having Identity Theft issue" isn't right English verbiage, while such most certainly aren't expected from reputed organizations.

Related article: Saskatchewan Taxpayers Alerted of ‘Refund’ E-mail Fraud

» SPAMfighter News - 2/6/2013