Fareham: Businesses warned over surge in scam emails
Hampshire businesses are being warned to be extra vigilant after a local IT company has reported a surge in scam emails. Taylor Made Computer Solutions, based in Fareham, has seen an increase in the prevalence of emails purporting to be from delivery companies but are in fact weapons being used by hackers.
In the most common scam, the emails claim there has been an issue with the delivery of a parcel and urge users to click a link to view the details or rearrange another time to send the items.
When users click on the link they are either taken to page where they are fooled into giving over sensitive details or, in many cases, immediately download malware onto their machine.
Nigel Taylor said: “What’s worrying is just how convincing these emails can look. They contain reference numbers, real addresses and the kind of detail you would expect from a genuine delivery company. It’s easy to see how, particularly in a big organisation which takes lots of deliveries, businesses can fall victim to this scam.
“We are urging organisations to brief all of their staff on this scam to ensure they are extra vigilant. Reception staff in particular should be made aware, as they are often the people who deal with deliveries.
“One tell-tale sign that can give away whether an email is genuine or not is what appears when you hover over the link. Sometimes it can display that the link is quite obviously nothing to do with a delivery. That said, cyber criminals are finding more and more ways of fooling people and some more sophisticated scams don’t allow you to see the URL when you hover over the link.
“If in doubt, check out its authenticity with your team.”
Through the scam hackers have the potential to access all data held by a company, including passwords, customer information and commercially sensitive data. Using this information they are able to hack social media accounts, steal money and even hold businesses to ransom over customer data.
