Beware of email lawsuit scam, an Android missed call con and how’s your country doing?
Welcome to Cyber Security Today. It’s Monday May 27th. I’m Howard Solomon, contributing reporter on cyber security for ITWorldCanda.com.
It’s Memorial Day in the U.S., hope you’re having a good holiday and thanks for listening.
 |
 |
 |
I’ve talked before about people in companies being suckered by email messages with poisoned attachments like invoices or notices for package deliveries. Security writer Brian Krebs has found a different scam: Messages pretending to be from a law firm saying you’re being sued. It asks you to read the attached document, and says you have seven days to reply or legal action will start. This fraud campaign is being sent to 100,000 business addresses, most of them in Canada. The email purports to come from a real law firm in Connecticut, who’s email address has been spoofed. Here’s one tip-off: No law firm or government considering a lawsuit will email you. They like paper. Lawsuit threats come special delivery, not by email.
A new kind of spam may be coming to Android phone users. The news site Bleeping Computer has a report that a security company has discovered a campaign that tries to trick users with a message that says “Missed call.” One version suggests you’re going to get a new iPhone, or there’s some sort of reward. The idea is to get you to click on an image or a link. Don’t fall for these scams. If you don’t know who a call is from, delete the message.
Finally, some countries do a better job of filtering out malicious email than others. That’s one of the findings of a British information site called Merchant Machine. Thirty-six per cent of the email in Brazil carried malware, according to its research. Mexico was second with a rate of almost 30 per cent. By comparison, almost nine per cent of email in the U.S. was malicious, almost five per cent in China. The lowest was 3.6 per cent in the Middle East country of Oman. Still, all of the countries studied 60 per cent of their email had spam. The security industry and Internet service providers have to do better.
That’s it for Cyber Security Today. Links to details about these stories can be found in the text version of each podcast at ITWorldCanada.com. That’s where you’ll also find my news stories aimed at businesses and cyber security professionals. Cyber Security Today can be heard on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or add us to your Flash Briefing on your smart speaker. Thanks for listening. I’m Howard Solomon