People are reporting a new scam in which you receive a phishing email that purports to be from USAA, the insurer of millions of members of the military as well as many veterans, telling you that you need to click on links in the email in order to view important documents. Like many phishing emails, the scammer tries to convince you into thinking you must click on a link and provide personal information or suffer dire consequences when the truth is that if you click on the link or provide personal information, you will become a victim of identity theft as the identity thief will use the information you provide to make you a victim of identity theft. Alternatively, merely by clicking on the link provided in the email, you may download keystroke logging malware that will enable the identity thief to steal all of the information in your computer, laptop or other device and use that information to make you a victim of identity theft. Here is a copy of the new email that is presently circulating. DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINKS. As phishing emails go, this one is pretty convincing and includes a copy of the USAA logo which is easy to copy and include in an email.
“View Accounts | Privacy Promise | Contact Us
Dear User,
You have new documents on usaa.com. Log on to view your documents. If you don’t want to receive this e-mail notification when your new documents are posted to usaa.com, you can change your preferences.
View Your Documents
Thank you,
USAA
P.S. Texting and driving … it can wait. Take the pledge to never text and drive.”
TIPS
Frankly, whenever you get an email, you can never be sure who is really sending it to you. Obviously if you receive this email and you do not have an account with USAA, you know it is a scam, however, if you receive something like this that appears to come from a company with which you do business, you should still not click on any links contained in the email unless you have independently confirmed with the company that the email is legitimate. Remember, even paranoids have enemies.