Recently, the Identity Theft
Resource Center (ITRC) pointed out that anyone can be a target of a scammer. Its
example was an email that it received claiming its Apple ID was restricted and
that they would not be able to make purchases on iTunes until they updated
their account. Its point is that if they, experts on ID theft, receive phishing
emails like this, you can also.
In mid-December, Los Angeles
County announced that in the spring of 2016 over 100 Los Angeles County
employees received a phishing email that caused them to disclose usernames and
passwords. The county was going to notify 756,000 citizens of the breach. The county
also had a warrant out for a Nigerian that it claims was behind the phishing
attack.
Even with the alleged Russian
hacking of the Democratic National Committee, phishing emails are a key component
into letting Russian operatives into the Democratic Party’s computers.
While the phishing email threat
to us as individuals may not come from a government, we need to defend
ourselves from scammers and ID thieves who are interested in our personal
information, our computers for malicious bot activity, or to extort money from
us in a ransomware attack.
ITRC recommends:
·
That you never click on a link or open an attachment
in an email that you were not expecting. This is true even if the sender
appears to be someone you know or recognize.
·
If you do receive an email requiring you to
change or update your information, get verbal confirmation before opening any
link or attachment.
·
You can also go directly to the sender’s website
through your web browser.
ITRC also recommends that if you
receive a phishing email that claims to be from Apple forward the email to reportphishing@apple.com. This is a monitored email inbox that does not
generate individual email replies.
ITRC:
CSO:
CBS News:
Federal Trade Commission:
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