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 verify your account due to “irregular activities.  Otherwise, the email informs you, your account will be restricted   Like many phishing emails,this one 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 looks legitimate.  The fact, however, that it is directed to “Dear User” rather than your name and the fact that no account number is provided are indications that this is a scam.

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.