Beware of the latest spam / phishing messages

by Posted on

Spammers, con-artists and hackers are always devising new ways to cheat and defraud people on the Internet. One of the ways hackers manage to infect your computer is by pretending to be someone else.

The latest spam /phishing that I came across was through one of my web clients. One late night I received a message from an anxious client regarding an email alleging copyright violation.

If you are in the US, such claims can be really scary for genuine businesses. The damages can be hefty if sued successfully.

At the first glance, I was fooled too. I clicked on the link to check the veracity of the claim. The email had originated from a computer in the US, and the link was that of a Google Drive. These two factors along with the issue being that of a client made me lower my guards.

Fortunately, the link did not download anything (or, that’s what I think so far) on my Android phone. It only presented me with a “Please wait” message with Google Drive icon.

I am presenting the spam / phishing message received via a website contact form for the benefit of general public. If you too receive a message similar to this, do not click on the link. Simply delete the message and forget.

Hello,

This is Melissa and I am a experienced photographer.

I was confused, frankly speaking, when I came across my images at your web-site. If you use a copyrighted image without my permission, you should know that you could be sued by the copyrigh owner.

It’s illicitly to use stolen images and it’s so disgusting!

Check out this document with the links to my images you used at [WebsiteName.com] and my earlier publications to get evidence of my copyrights.

Download it now and check this out for yourself: https://sites.google(.)com/site/caseXYZXYZ/googledrive/share/downloads/file/storage?ID=XYZXYZ

If you don’t delete the images mentioned in the document above within the next few days, I’ll write a complaint against you to your hosting provider stating that my copyrights have been infringed and I am trying to protect my intellectual property.

And if it doesn’t work, you may be pretty damn sure I am going to report and sue you! And I will not bother myself to let you know of it in advance.

As an after though, here are the tell tell signs that the message is fraudulent.

  1. The sender does not identify herself properly.
  2. The message threatens of legal implications, but does not provide any genuine contact detail – address and phone.
  3. There are no details about the issue or the actual details of violation.
  4. The message requires downloading a file to access the details.
  5. Spelling and grammar errors!

Never click on such links. If someone threatens you of legal consequences, sends you a court notice, penalty notice, pending invoice reminder, payment advice, or just about anything that you didn’t expect, don’t fall for the scam.