Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:
You may recall my earlier post about the hack into AT&T’s computer systems. Well, that was just half the story. In fact, the information gleaned from the computer system was used to try sending phishing emails to those customers to get even more information.
Internal company documents show that the security breach was only the first step in a more elaborate scam that involved bogus e-mail being sent to AT&T customers that attempted to trick them into revealing additional info that could be used for widespread fraud or identity theft.
“We haven’t seen anything like this before,” acknowledged Walt Sharp, an AT&T spokesman. [Source: SFGate]
We Say: To be honest, I haven’t heard of anything like this either. The hackers used actual order numbers to fake a message that said that “we recently tried to charge your credit card for your SBCdslstore.com order and it was rejected by the bank because it has no complete information” and “To update the credit card information details for your order, please select this link.”
Typical phishing expedition, but with all that info, it would look legit. So, nowadays, if I get an email of this type, what do I do? Myself, I check the URL. In this case it was a .org address… a dead giveaway. What else? Enter through the regular site, not via the email. That way you know you’re going to the right site. And if you really are suspicious… call or email the company yourself. Obviously don’t reply to the email, but write a new one to an email address you know is legit.
These days, you can’t be too careful.
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