SPAM has become a normal part of life (I am sorry to say) and it seems like we just deal with it.
However, have you ever received an email from yourself that you did not send? Worse, it is a demand for money, or they will release your “private” videos to your family and friends?
Are they really in your computer and using your email? Do they have access to your address book?
Most of the time the answer is NO. What has happened is called Email Spoofing. The hackers make the email look like it came from someone else, in this case yourself. Scammers can save a different name for any email address that is in their contacts and use that. An example would be [email protected]. They can save it as Fred Flinstone in their address book and make it look like, when they send it, it came from Fred to Fred.
There are also many tools out there that can change the email address to spoof yours.
Why?
Aside from making it look like they have hacked you and to scare you into paying them, it gets around spam filters.
What you can do:
Check your sent items to absolutely make sure it did not come from you. This is where the 99.9% of the time it did not comes in.
Secure your accounts. We preach this over and over and over for a reason. Use unique passwords for every site. This includes your email. The easiest thing to do is get a password manager so that you do not have to remember all the long passwords. HOWEVER, your email password is one that you are going to want to remember, or at the very least write down. Why? If you get locked out of your password manager and need to do a reset, and happen to be locked out of your email… you get the picture.
DO NOT JUST CLICK! For the longest time, we were teaching people how to click on things to get places. That was a long time ago, sorry to date myself, but now it is just second nature. You have to make sure you do not click that link in the email. If it is for an account update or a password reset or just to check on an order, PLEASE go to the corresponding account’s webpage from your browser, not the email, and find the information you are looking for. Not only will you prevent yourself from getting phished, you are also practicing good hygiene for email security.
DON’T REPLY! Also, if you do catch on that you are getting scammed or think you are, do not reply to the emails. Your reply will confirm that there is a legitimate email address that they sent to. You will now be on their radar.
If you think you are being scammed, please stop all communication with the individual. Report it and seek help to make sure your accounts are secure. Yes, of course we can help with that.
As always, please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns.
Stay Safe Out There!