A lot of people share files with friends or colleagues by uploading them to cloud storage and sending an access link. I do this myself, sharing folders, documents or photo collections.
Malicious scammers can do the same thing. It’s a great technique for them, because the email itself has no attachments, and thus won’t set off anti-virus or anti-malware filters. However, once you click on the link, wham. You’ve just downloaded malware, like an infected Word doc or PDF. Alternatively, you may have been directed to a website that automatically loads malware or does phishing to steal your personal info.
Here is a sample of this type of email. This email’s link doesn’t go to a document – it goes to a malware-packed website. Of course, the lousy grammar helps us see that this email is a scam, but the scammers are getting better at this sort of thing.
If you receive an email from someone you don’t know, and it asks you to click a link or open an attachment, delete the email right away. And if you receive an email like this from someone you do know, and you weren’t expecting to receive such a message, verify with them that they actually sent it before proceeding. Ask by phone, or text, or by sending a new message – not by replying to the possible scam message. Don’t be fooled!
One final note: The scam says, “This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.” Uh, no. Such claims mean nothing. Anyone can type those words, or insert a logo.
Here’s a classic example of a scam that cites a news story as validation that the claim is authentic, or at least credible. It’s not. Despite the scammer’s citing a famous story about an heiress bequeathing a fortune, that’s no proof that this is an heiress looking to give her millions to you. Because it ain’t.
You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay, or you can call me Johnny or you can call me Sonny, or you can call me RayJay, or you can call me RJ… but ya doesn’t hafta call me Johnson.
This is a common scam: The scammer pretends to be a famous person, and links to the bio or a story about that person. That means nothing. A person wants to share some gold with you, and links to a BBC story about a battle in Iraq or Afghanistan. That means nothing. A person claims to be one of the members of the wealthy family that owns Wal-Mart, with links to a Wikipedia page. That means nothing.
I can’t believe my luck – Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates wants to give me $5 million. Hurray! And not only that, he’s contacting me from an email address at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa. It’s also a shame to learn that he’s sick and is going to Germany for treatment.
To think, the U.S. Secretary of State wants to send me money! Interesting that he’s using a gmail.com address for outgoing mail, a German email address for replies, and a phone number in the African country of Benin.
Isn’t this exciting? Here’s an email received that promises me a significant payout ($620,000) for, well, am not really sure. I’m sure the scam would require paying some up-front fee and/or handing over bank account information. If you receive messages like this, simply delete them.
This is an amusing spam scam, if only because it’s so poorly written. Mr. Andrew McCabe, the Acting Director of the FBI, is certainly not behind this scam. Also, the FBI doesn’t send emails using Cyber Internet Services Private Ltd. in Pakistan, or refer people to Nigerian banks, or pay people via ATM card.
This is a generally unremarkable spam message except for the obvious. James Comey was fired as the Director of the FBI on May 9. That makes it unlikely that Mr. Comey can deliver the promised $1.2 million. Bummer.
I received this awesome tech spam message today from 
A little reverse psychology, eh? Don’t worry, trying to get this faux fortune will only cost you $450 from the spammers… or maybe more. Interesting that the name of the contact, Mr.James Richard, has the same spacing throughout, which is a telltale sign of either a bad copy/paste or a machine-generated form letter.
IANAL — I am not an attorney. I’ve never studied law, or even been inside a law school. I have a cousin who is an attorney, and quite a few close friends. But IANAL.
This is a great piece of unclaimed-money spam. Normally I redact the email addresses – but these are far too juicy to censor, especially the “from” address. Merely because the spam links to a genuine web page, such as this bio for Secretary Mnuchin or a report about Saddam Hussein from the BBC, doesn’t make the email itself valid. In this case, it’s certainly not valid. (And please hold the snarky comments about government officials using non-government email accounts.)
We received this realistic-looking email today claiming to be from a payment company called FrontStream. If you click the links, it tries to get you to active an account and provide bank details. However… We never requested an account from this company. Therefore, we label it phishing — and an attempt to defraud.
Everyone has received those crude emails claiming to be from your bank’s “Secuirty Team” that tells you that you need to click a link to “reset you account password.” It’s pretty easy to spot those emails, with all the misspellings, the terrible formatting, and the bizarre “reply to” email addresses at domains halfway around the world. Other emails of that sort ask you to review an unclothed photo of a A-list celebrity, or open up an attached document that tells you what you’ve won.
This is a good one. The spam message was short and sweet:
Mrs. Rachael Adams is back, and still wants to give me a fine Bavarian automobile. But is it a 7-series or a 5-series? Is it a 2015 or 2016 model? Doesn’t matter – it’s a scam. Just like the one a few weeks ago, also from Mrs. Adams, but at least that one was clearer about the vehicle. Hey, it’s the same reg code pin as last time, too. See “
Spam scam: Who needs stand-up comedians when laughs appears in my inbox each and every day? This is one of the most amusing in a while, mainly because I can’t parse most of it.
It’s almost too weird to blog. Most of the junk bulk messages I receive are easily classifiable: phishing attempts, spam, 419s, viruses and so-on. This message, which came to one of our info@ addresses, is just weird. “Oliver” sent it using classic spam-broadcasting techniques, from a disguised server, and from an invalid return email address.