I used to be shocked to obtain an e mail this week telling me that I had renewed my annual subscription for McAfee virus safety.
Why a shock? Nicely, I believe the one time I’ve ever run McAfee’s anti-virus product on certainly one of my computer systems was again within the late Nineties when McAfee acquired the corporate I used to be working for on the time…
…and I definitely didn’t pay for that.
Nonetheless, the e-mail tells me that my checking account has already been debited for $249.99 (that appears like loads, even whether it is to guard two gadgets with not simply anti-virus but in addition “theft safety.”)
Right here’s the e-mail I obtained:
Hmm… that wacky McAfee emblem composed with Unicode characters isn’t the one motive why this e mail raised my suspicions.
So, what’s truly happening right here?
There’s no attachment to the e-mail – so it’s not the case that the e-mail is attempting to trick me into opening a malicious attachment.
And there are additionally no hyperlinks – so I’m not being duped into getting into private data or passwords right into a phishing web page.
As an alternative, this e mail desires me to scare me into making a telephone name. In keeping with the e-mail, if I want to cancel the subscription, I ought to name McAfee’s cancellation division instantly on the equipped toll-free quantity.
After all, it’s not going to be a real McAfee worker who solutions that telephone name. But when I had been capable of phone that quantity from the UK, my guess is that I’d be tricked into handing over some private monetary data that may then be used towards me.
I haven’t referred to as the quantity, and when you obtain an analogous message you shouldn’t both. On the very least, verify your checking account to see when you have truly been charged for one thing earlier than you are taking any steps to get your a reimbursement…
Additional studying: Kirk McElhearn and Joshua Lengthy have delved slightly extra deeply than myself into what seems to be an analogous cybercriminal marketing campaign, posing as emails from GeekSquad. Learn what they came upon in their article on the Intego blog.
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