South Snohomish County Crime Watch Hot Sheet: PHISHING- The Leading Introduction to a Scam

Monday, March 31, 2025

PHISHING- The Leading Introduction to a Scam

You no doubt have heard about phishing. And with good reason. 80-95% of cyber-attacks begin with a phishing email or text message (known as smishing). Phishing is proving to be the number one-way scammers open the door to your personal information and your money.

Of course, the key feature of phishing email or smishing text messages is the link that the message asks you to click on to verify your information or to pay a late bill or fee.

As with any scam, phishing can use any number of pretexts to try to convince you to click on that link. 65% of phishing emails target businesses to download malware often for business espionage, a ransomware attack, or to siphon funds from the target business into the scammer’s pockets. 35% of phishing and smishing attacks target personal assets.

In the personal realm, the list is long in ploys to get you to click on that link. For example,

· Good to Go Scam which has been prevalent in recent months.

· Refund Scams where the scammer tries to convince a target that they have a refund coming to them

· Package scams where a scammer pretending to be Amazon, the Postal Service, UPS, or FEDEX claims there is a problem in delivering a package to you

· Zoom phishing scam where the scammer claims there is a problem with your Zoom account, or it invites you to join a Zoom meeting, or it tells you that you missed a Zoom meeting.

More phishing attacks are targeting mobile devices. One good example of this is the increase in the number of toll (Good to Go) smishing texts being sent around the country.

Phishing and smishing scams have many traits in common with most other scams.

· The email or text will pretend to be from a legitimate organization. It will use social engineering to look exactly like it came from the real organization that the scammers are impersonating.

· The message will use urgent or threatening language to get you emotional so that you click before you think.

· The message may ask for payment right away and/or ask for personal information.

· Sender addresses may not quite match the address of the real organization.

· Hyperlinks may not match the web addresses of the real organization. And the misleading web addresses can be subtle such as pavpal.com instead of paypal.com.

Be sure to take a few seconds to look over any emails or texts that urge you to act right away. Inspect sender email addresses to ensure they are genuine to who the message claims to be from. Hover over any hyperlinks to inspect their web addresses to check that they truly will take you to a legitimate web site. If you feel a need to contact the organization, do not click on the link but look up the phone number or email address in a web search or from documentation that you may have received from the organization previously such as the back of your credit card or an invoice/statement.

And don’t be afraid to ask a family member or friend if they think the email/text is suspicious.