If you thought with a new year, that 2016 would see less attempts at ‘hacking’ and that email scams were a thing of the past, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Over the years we have written a few articles highlighting different internet scams; Revenue Warns of Email scam and General Advisory: watch out for domain scams and it looks like not much has changed. Email Scams are still widespread and they’re more sneaky than before and even the smart people are falling for it.
Irish Institutions such as banks like AIB, Irish Revenue and other corporations are warning their client’s of potential email scam’s currently in the market, and there are bound to be some others not made aware of…. yet.
And it doesn’t just apply to these institutions but to domain holders. There are unscrupulous emails claiming that you will lose your domain name or that you need to buy domain.tld to help improve your Search rankings.
[message_box title=”See an example of one received by a client who wisely ignored the mail but made us aware of the situation.” color=”black”][/message_box]
On the surface these mails appear to be from the Irish Revenue but on close inspection it is easy to deduce these mail are fraudulent. Hovering over a link should show that the link does not indeed go to revenue.ie but to the scammer’s URL. As with everything online, Security is Key and if you’re not sure about the origins of an email and it’s authenticity, DON’T CLICK ON THE LINKS.
In fact, Irish Revenue us once again advising of the potential threat of receiving an scam mail. Here’s a link on Revenue.ie’s most recent advisory; Warning: Latest Email Scam
Ever wondered what happens when you reply to a hoax email? Watch this TED Talk.
Please be vigilant and if you’re not 100% sure of an email’s legitimacy, don’t click on links contained within or reply to the sender. Instead check directly with the your vendor and remember DELETE the email completely.