Today’s Scam of the day comes directly from my email where I received the following email purporting to be from AT &T. This is an example of a phishing email that may appear to be from a legitimate source, but is from an identity thief. As with many phishing scams it implies that there is an emergency, namely in this case, a problem with my billing information that could result in the termination of my account. The email then provides a link for me to go to in order to provide the necessary information to maintain my account. DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK. Clicking on the link will either take you to a page where you are asked to provider personal information that would be used to make you a victim of identity theft or it will cause keystroke logging malware to be installed on to your computer or other device that would steal your personal information and make you a victim of identity theft. In this particular phishing scam there are many indications that it is a scam. First is that it came from an email of a private individual and not from AT&T. In fact, the email probably was sent as part of a botnet where an unsuspecting victim’s computer was hacked and used to send out these scam emails. Another indication is that the email is not directed to me by name, but rather to me as “Dear customer.” In addition there is not identification of my particular account. Finally, and most tellingly are the spelling errors such as the incorrect spelling of the word “failure” and “result.”
“Dear customer,
We noticed that your billing information has recently change as we are unable to process
your last month bill.
Please update your billing information by clicking on our secure server below to avoid termination of your AT&T line.
Note: Faluire to update your billing information will rezult to termination of your Line and you wont be able to restore your number.
Best regards,
AT&T© 2014 AT&T Inc.All rights reserved.”
TIPS
Never click on links in emails or text messages unless you are absolutely sure that they are legitimate and do not provide personal information in response to an email unless you are absolutely sure that both the request is legitimate and that the request is actually coming from the real company. When I first received this email I could tell right away that it was a scam. However, if I had any thought that it might be legitimate, I would call the company, in this case AT&T at a telephone number that I know is correct in order to inquire about the email.