USAA members beware! email scam today.

[RV_]

I got an email today that looked like USAA but they screwed up.

The subject was "Your USAA Account Access Has Been Restricted." I edited it and deleted the active links, you can see it below. There is no security info in it because they do not know my USAA member number or current email. They sent it to my old Suddenlink.net email address I still can access but do not use anymore because they will shut it down at some point. Courtesy access when I left because they are not here to use for Internet.

If you get this email and click on the review account link I am sure they will ask for your user names passwords etc. then clean out your accounts. I knew better but since they have active links may be traceable and can be arrested.

I did call USAA to send them a copy so they could run down the email addresses, and alert them to the attempt to scam USAA members today at about 2 pm. If you did get one and entered your credentials call USAA immediately and secure your account.

Here is the bogus email below. I erased the active links and old email address. Do not click on the links if you receive one of these.

Safe banking and travels!

 

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by RV_

[Kirk W]

Scammers have been sending out things of that sort for various companies for years. The latest one is efforts to use COVID-19 as a basis and I have had warnings of that from both the VA and also from Medicare. 

[edatlanta]

Thanks Kirk.  I have a policy of NEVER clicking on a link from any email.  If if is something I may be interested in I go to that web site directly.  It is certainly tempting in a moment of "surfing" to click on one of those and you definitely never know.

[Dutch_12078]

A quick check that works in most email clients is to just hover your cursor over the link without clicking to see what URL the link actually goes to. If it's not an obvious link to your bank, insurance, etc, company, then trash it. If it does appear to be legitimate then I would still do as Ed says, and go to their known website directly.

[RV_]

Good advice guys.

It was obviously bogus, but since I was in email on my computer I just accessed the account to confirm no restrictions before I called and got their Security reporting email http://abuse@USAA.com to forward the original email with hot links to them.

I do URL hover checks but some are hard for even me to read. And good ones like https://nl.nytimes.com with ten lines of URL below it looks bogus but are not.

Experienced folks like us are not the targets. There are lots of folks that might click on it and from years ago I remember the figure of 3%. No matter how bogus it looks 3%, give or take very little, will fall for them. If they do a million of them voila, big bucks.

Edited June 22, 2020 by RV_

[Kirk W]

2 hours ago, RV_ said:

It was obviously bogus, but since I was in email on my computer I just accessed the account to confirm no restrictions before I called and got their Security reporting email http://abuse@USAA.com to forward the original email with hot links to them.

Which is exactly what anyone who gets that sort of thing should do with it. Most companies and agencies have security people who try to keep track of these things. 

[RV_]

Kirk,

They can track and find the culprits in some cases when they have active spoofed phone numbers and working links sent to them immediately before they move off. Small businesses haven't the resources but large money businesses like banks, online manufacturers like Dell and Microsoft.

Here is a link written this year from CSO. 

"CSO serves enterprise security decision-makers and users with the critical information they need to stay ahead of evolving threats and defend against criminal cyberattacks. With incisive content that addresses all security disciplines from risk management to network defense to fraud and data loss prevention, CSO offers unparalleled depth and insight to support key decisions and investments for IT security professionals."

They wrote an in depth article for us consumers that with a quick scan can tell you about most Phishing attempts. 

Excerpt:

"What is phishing? How this cyber attack works and how to prevent it

Phishing is a method of trying to gather personal information using deceptive e-mails and websites. Here's what you need to know about this venerable, but increasingly sophisticated, form of cyber attack.

Nearly a third of all breaches in the past year involved phishing, according to the 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report. For cyber-espionage attacks, that number jumps to 78%. The worst phishing news for 2019 is that its perpetrators are getting much, much better at it thanks to well-produced, off-the-shelf tools and templates.

Some phishing scams have succeeded well enough to make waves:

• Perhaps one of the most consequential phishing attacks in history happened in 2016, when hackers managed to get Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta to offer up his Gmail password.
• The "fappening" attack, in which intimate photos of a number of celebrities were made public, was originally thought to be a result of insecurity on Apple's iCloud servers, but was in fact the product of a number of successful phishing attempts.
• In 2016, employees at the University of Kansas responded to a phishing email and handed over access to their paycheck deposit information, resulting in them losing pay."

See written for us not the security techs they work with. There is mush more in the link below. This one I decided to keep today in my Pocket on Firefox.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/2117843/what-is-phishing-how-this-cyber-attack-works-and-how-to-prevent-it.html

Edited June 22, 2020 by RV_

[rynosback]

I get all sorts of spammers. I forward the emails to the companies that they are trying to pretend that they are. I NEVER click on any link in them. If in doubt go to the website directly and log in. You should see an email sent by them in your in box. If not, be glad that you did not click on that link. There are ALOT of naïve people in this world that fall for this garbage all the time. This is why they keep doing it. 

[RV_]

Yep!

[Kirk W]

On 6/22/2020 at 6:33 PM, rynosback said:

I get all sorts of spammers. I forward the emails to the companies that they are trying to pretend that they are.

I don't get nearly as many of those today as used to come through, but my spam filter does seem to still get a lot of them. I do check my spam file fairly often and when I find one that pretends to be from a company that I do business with, the pass it on to their security department, but the others I just leave in the trash. Real emails from my bank do not send links at all, but only tell me to sign in and pick up an important message. With any financial institution, Medicare, Social Security, or similar places that I do business, I have the URL to the sign-in page in my favorites and I just use those. 

[rynosback]

12 hours ago, Kirk W said:

I don't get nearly as many of those today as used to come through, but my spam filter does seem to still get a lot of them. I do check my spam file fairly often and when I find one that pretends to be from a company that I do business with, the pass it on to their security department, but the others I just leave in the trash. Real emails from my bank do not send links at all, but only tell me to sign in and pick up an important message. With any financial institution, Medicare, Social Security, or similar places that I do business, I have the URL to the sign-in page in my favorites and I just use those. 

I agree that they do not have links if sent from the real business like you said. But it does not stop people from clicking on them. It’s all about being smart and CYA. 

[RV_]

Whenever I had to be in a classified briefing in the Air Force we had a posted notice on the outside and inside of the door, and had a one minute briefing before and after each time too. We all knew. Today we can be on autopilot and click as we realize Oh Spit! and it is too late. I have an emergency switch to stop all traffic until I sort out any brain farts I have. However, that one was easy to spot.

[rynosback]

Duplicate

Edited July 1, 2020 by rynosback

[jamtracy]

I just received a similar one from amazon stating that my prime account was not paid. 

What really sucks is I'm sure a lot of people fall for these scams and give up personal information to these crooks.

Edited July 7, 2020 by jamtracy

[Ray,IN]

My Microsoft live email will display the actual sender's email address when displayed address is hovered over. Any incoming email that is not in my address book goes directly to junk folder, which I review nightly.

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Ray,IN