It was just last week that I provided you with the worst attempt at a phishing scam I had ever seen. In a phishing scam you are lured into clicking on a link or providing information to an identity thief who sends you an email that generally appears to be from a trusted source and tricks you into responding to a phony emergency.  Many phishing scams are not very well done, as was the case last week with a phishing letter that combined an email address that was obviously phony, poor grammar and no logo of the company purporting to be sending the email.  However, today I received an email which is copied below that may be one of the best phishing scams I have ever encountered.  The email address from which it was sent appears legitimate, it is written with proper grammar and spelling and it contains excellent counterfeit versions of the Bank of America logo.  As usual it describes a believable emergency to which I must respond and carries the tainted link for me to click on to proceed to remedy the situation.  DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK in this copy or in a version you may receive because if you do, one of two things will happen and either is bad.  Either you will be prompted to provide personal information about your bank account which will lead to your account being emptied by the identity thief or, by clicking on the link, you will unwittingly download a keystroke logging malware program that will steal all of your personal information from your computer and use it to make you a victim of identity theft.

TIPS

Never click on links or download attachments contained in emails or text messages because you can never be sure of whether they are legitimate or not and the risk of downloading malware is too great.  If you have any thought that the email or text message might be legitimate, you should call the real company, in this case, Bank of America at a telephone number that you know is accurate to confirm whether or not the communication was legitimate.  You should also make sure that all of your electronic devices including your computer, laptop, tablet and smartphone have current anti-virus and anti-malware software, but remember, you cannot totally rely on these security software programs because they are generally ineffective against the latest viruses and malware.

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