Yesterday Fred M had his email account hacked – for those who don’t know how this works, here is a brief summary.
Everyone in Fred’s address book gets an e-mail supposedly from him, normally some sob story about wanting some help/or money.
There is clearly some obvious tellers…
I know that Fred’s e-mail is @sky.com – clicking on the link will take the unsuspected to the ‘Hackers account’ the grammar is another obvious give away – so many errors.
(Removed link) – in this case @yahoo.com –
“I need to get an amazon gift card for my Niece, Its her birthday but i can’t do this now because I’m currently traveling.Can you get it from any store around you? I’ll pay back as soon as i am back. Kindly let me know if you can handle this.”
There are lots of websites that can help you remain safe online – one is below – the link is safe and will take you to – ‘getsafeonline’
https://www.getsafeonline.org/protecting-your-computer/spam-and-scam-email/
So what happens next, well there are several options:-
Fred’s e-mail provider can put a ‘stop’ on his account (which they have done) and if he has no back-up account (Gmail for example) he is out of action for some time.
- Change Your Password. …
- Let Your email Contacts Know. …
- Change Your Security Question. …
- Commit to Multi Factor Authentication. …
- Check Your Email Settings. …
- Scan Your Computer for Malware and Viruses. …
- Change Any Other Accounts with the Same Password. …
Consider Creating a New Email Address.
Always use strong passwords
Make sure you have a good rated Anti-Virus/Malware program running
Finally Neighbourhood Watch has just run an Scam Awareness session – Fred M was NOT one of the attendee’s even though he was aware of the session, maybe, just maybe had he have attended this session – what has happened may not have occurred. We have run these sessions before and if there is interest will do so again in the future.
If I can help – please contact me – my details are on the Top Section.
