That’s right. Apparently, scammers are using the societal anxiety about coronavirus to engineer scams. The Wall Street Journal on 3/4/2020 published an article by James Rundle, Catherine Stupp and Kim Nash detailing some of these efforts.
The phishing emails are very sophisticated and look like they may be from legitimate health care facilities and even the World Health Organization (WHO). The scams may target both institutional as well as individual email users.
Phishing refers to sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce the recipient to reveal personal or other confidential information or to click on a link which downloads malware.
Like all phishing scams, we must be vigilant and employ some very simple protective actions to reduce the risk of being scammed. These actions may take only 10 seconds:
- Verify the sender by hovering your mouse over the “from” line (sender’s address) to see if you recognize it or matches the organization it claims to be from;
- Inspect any links in the email and verify them in the same manner as above by hovering your mouse over the URL to see if you recognize it or if it appears to be going where it claims to be going;
- When in doubt, delete. If you aren’t sure about the authenticity of the sender or the link, delete the email.
In today’s cyber-society, we need to think before we “click.”
If you would like to discuss some other simple cybersecurity actions you can take, please contact us. Remember, we are here to help.
Roy Gilbert is a registered representative of Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp. Securities and investment advisory services offered through Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp., a broker/dealer (Member SIPC) and registered investment advisor. Insurance offered through Lincoln affiliates and other fine companies. Family Wealth Decisions Group is not an affiliate of Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp. CRN-2993258-031220