Well, it’s been an interesting few days in the land of spam and phishing. Yesterday I wrote about a spam email I received, along with dozens of others that’s gotten a bit silly. Today I noticed an invite in one of my company calendars, “Your order Estimate OYYE03661 has been queued”:
I’ve seen these before, but not in MY calendar.
So, my first thought was “when did my calendar get changed to “add invitations to my calendar” to “From Everyone”. Needless to say, that should NOT be the default. EVER!
So, if you need to know how to change this in Google, here you go:
Go the gear icon at the top-right of your calendar:
Then click “settings”
Scroll down to Event Settings, the “Add invitations to my calendar”
Then change to “When I respond to the invitation in email”
I’m also going to recommend unchecking the “Show events automatically created by Gmail in my calendar”
Anyway, we need to stay vigilant against fraudsters. This is one annoying game of whack-a-mole.
Less than 1/2 hour ago, I received a mess in my inbox. Someone sent an email out to an unknown quantity of email recipients with no subject and the message body stating “Who are you”. To me, this screams phishing. Well, to (currently) 11 people, it didn’t. There were silly responses (“I contain mutitudes”) to “Take me off this email”. One person did reply stating “you are all replying to a fraud email…stop replying…” Which is the most useful message on there. But, really, not that helpful. So, just mark them as spam and move along. Replying lets the scammers know that a) this email is valid and b) you are somewhat gullible and, therefore, more susceptible to phishing scams. And, of course, replying all to these sorts of things floods other people’s inboxes.
So, please, just don’t. I guess if you feel called to troll scammers, just reply to the original sender. I’ve got other things to do than manage this junk in my inbox.
This one was sent to me today. Now, back in the day I used Dashlane, but I deleted that account years ago. That was my first clue that this was a scam. Now, let’s explore this further.
This one has a few other easy ways to see that it’s a scam. The first is the email address it was sent from. Notice, the sender is NOT Dashlane.
The second comes when you hover over the action button:
Again, nothing to do with Dashlane.
There’s no way to know if the scammers “know” I had a Dashlane account due a data breach which has been dumped on the dark web, or is just a random guess. They usually send these sorts of messages out by the thousands: a purely numbers game. But it doesn’t matter. The investment from the criminal is minimal, so they only need a few clicks to make this payoff.
I just got this email a few minutes ago, ostensibly from RyanAir:
Man, this one looks pretty legitimate. The things that caught my attention? #1, I haven’t booked any travel with RyanAir.
#2, the email is one I haven’t used in ages, but it is set to auto-forward to me main one. But it’s not one I would’ve used. Perhaps I used it in the past with RyanAir? Nope. Never flown with them.
But what if, maybe, just maybe, it was someone else, some other Carl Setzer, who accidently used this email that was off in some weird capacity. Hmmm…
Oh, well if someone made a mistake, I should click on this link, right? Be nice and help a chap out, right? Knowing how many people want to be nice, I opt to hover over this link, which leads me to the big ol’ red flag
Check out THIS url:
Yep, my friends: classic phishing!
Now, you don’t need to dig around like I did. I did so mostly for the academic exercise. My first impulse was to mark this as phishing immediately, but I just was too curious.
For most folks, just mark as spam and ignore these things. Do NOT click on any of the links!
So, the world of spams & scams is evolving. Be aware and be safe, my friends!
This one is text based. Watch for these E-Z Pass texts that state you have an unpaid toll. Well, it’s fraudulent. As always, DO NOT CLICK THE LINK! Report it as a scam or junk text, then delete it.
Oh, and it’s more than E-Z Pass, but also SunPass, Peach Pass, EZDriveMA…and I’m sure others. And I expect this list will expand as the scammers find other passes to spoof.
I expect this one will get larger before it fades into the next scam.
Last June I wrote about a scam running through my Facebook accounts. Well, I’ve now seen this a few times over the months. However, starting overnight last night, several of the pages I managed have been inundated with the message. I think I’m up to 7 or 8 on one page alone.
Here’s a screenshot of the message:
Ultimately, it’s a phishing scam. If you click on the link, it’ll either ask you for your credentials or download malware…or both. Dear friends, DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK!!!!
Part of me takes delight in reporting these…people…for spam and getting their accounts blocked. However, in the end, it’s just a game of whack-a-mole. Clearly, they are able to create new accounts as fast as they get deleted. A part of me wants to kick these folks in the gonads.
Anyway, I wanted share this ASAP and I’m sure there are some people alarmed and, thus, more likely to click on the link. Please be safe out there in cyberspace!
So, when I saw this in my email the other day, my suspicions were raised.
Besides no longer being a LastPass customer, the sender’s email was a huge red-flag.
Ah, there’s a link! I always recommend people do in these circumstances is hover over links in email. In the lower left-hand corner, you can see the actual link. *Note, this is not a a LastPass site.
I’m quite confident that these hackers got my information from the dark web, but found that I’ve changed all my passwords, as well as shifted away from LastPass. It’s a rather convincing email phishing for information.
So, I wanted to share this for a few reasons. Mainly, for my fellow LastPass breachees, watch for these sorts of scams. Hackers can use information in multiple ways, not just with accessing your sites with stolen credentials. Also, there are some good tools to use in any suspicious email. My main advice: never click on a link unless you’re 100% certain it’s valid. Reach out to the send via phone/text if you’re in doubt.
Anyway, be wary my friends. If you’ve ever been part of a data breach (is there anyone who hasn’t?), expect that the information collected will be used against you.
Over the past few days, I’ve been receiving multiple emails from Microsoft’s Account Team with single-use codes. At first, I assumed that my son or wife was trying to access the account. And the folks at Microsoft added the text “If you didn’t request this code, you can safely ignore this email. Someone else might have typed your email address by mistake.” But I started to get concerned as the number of these messages increased and no one said “hey dad, I can’t get in the Office”. Finally, I decided it was time to figure out what was going on.
So, I first logged into my Microsoft account (account.microsoft.com) and went to the security panel. From there I opened “View My Activity”.
What I saw alarmed me. There multiple attempts to log in from places like Vietnam and Guyana.
Now, I was pretty confident in my account’s security. I update my password regularly and use a strong password. And when I looked at the “session activity” it states that “incorrect password entered”. Which seems pretty solid. I’m pretty sure that an old password has been leaked from a data breach and is in some list available on the dark web.
But I think it’s not adequate. Exploring further, I realize that I had not yet enabled two-factor authentication, nor connected it to my authentication app. So, I fixed that promptly. I firmly believe everyone really should do these steps for all their account. Do you know where to do that? I thought I’d help out by adding the steps.
One enables that from the Advanced security panel.
I encourage all of you to make sure your security settings are using the most up-to-date protocols:
Multifactor authenication
Authentication Apps
Pass Keys
Also, I opted to sign out of EVERY app. Yeah, it’s a bit of a pain, but I don’t want to have my information compromised. I like that I can do that from the control panel.
Anyway, we really can’t be too safe on today’s internet, can’t we?
Have you seen a spike in Microsoft Single Use Code emails that are not from you? Let me know in the comments.
I’ve used LastPass for several years now. Even through a couple of data breaches. But this latest saga, especially with the, *ahem*, lack of transparency in their communications eroded my trust in the app. After looking over several options (if you’re looking, check out PCMag’s list of Best Password Managers), I opted for NordPass.
With all that, yesterday, this video came into my YouTube feed:
If you’re still on LastPass, why!?
It’s a rather snarky rendition of how LastPass failed in their security controls. Anyway, it reminded me of my frustrations with them. I was willing to turn a blind eye to many of their issues due, well, laziness. Porting to a new provider was going to be a pain the…you know. However, a friend of mine’s information was released in this hack, and it was brutal. This was the tipping point for me, watching the impact of this for a friend’s business.
I want you all to be safe 🛟 That's why I want you to click on my profile & scroll through my tweets from yesterday about my massive hack that took over my social media & lead to my almost 1 million subscriber YouTube channel being deleted 😱
This finally motivated me to shift to Nordpass. It turned out that the transition was nowhere near as hard as I imagined. So, so far, I find the tool works fine and have no problem recommending them. It’s only based on a few weeks of experience, though. I’ll keep exploring it further.
I’ve received notices from time-to-time from “friends” who I’d already friended. Random and every so often. Today, it was my turn.
It started with a good friend texting me saying he’d just gotten a friend request from me. Well, as we’ve been friends on Facebook for years, it was a tad bit suspicious.
I jumped on to my page, and up pops a message saying it looks like someone is pretending to be me and what do I want to. Actually, the whole process was pretty quick and easy. Ironically, while I was messaging a few other friends who’d let me know, I had a friend request from someone I’ve known for years. And got to report that one.
I’m really not sure the value of this, except for the ability to directly message people and solicit cash. Probably setting up a “I need emergency funds” scam.
Anyway, be duly diligent with new friend requests; especially if you suspect you already are Facebook friends. And, if someone pings you saying they’re in a Mexican jail needing bail money (or some such thing), be suspicious.
