Phishing Scenario: Malicious email using current events to push malware

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Popular topics (current events) making headlines in the media will often be used by criminals to push malware.  Criminals don’t favor any one topic, so you must assume all topics could potentially be used maliciously.  Whether it is a story on a recent natural disaster, political unrest, social issue, famous person, or a company either being successful or having issues, no topics are off limits.  This example uses Greta Thunberg’s fame, the fact she was named the Person of the Year for Time magazine, climate change and the recent wave of protests (demonstrations) to push malware.  We will go over the example email sent to victims to look at the various warning signs it contained to hopefully protect you and your family from this, and future, attacks.

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Phishing Scenario: User infected with ransomware

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If you have ever wondered how a ransomware infection occurs, this is the story for you.  We will go through the steps of how a phishing email to an unsuspected user resulted in the files on their computer becoming encrypted with ransomware.  Even though this scenario resulted in a computer being infected with ransomware, phishing emails like this one can result in other type of malware/virus infections as well.  As we walk through the phishing scenario, I will provide some tips on how to verify the email is legitimate and point out warning signs that could have alerted the user that the email was malicious and fake.

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Social Media Scenario: Surveys

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Surveys seen on Facebook, Twitter, etc. seem harmless and a lot are, but be careful for surveys that could be used to gather private, personal identifiable information (PII).  It's important to remember, one piece of information may not say much about you or your family, but if you add several pieces of information together someone would learn quite a bit.

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Social Media Scenario: Facebook Neighborhood Group

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I urge people to think about how the information they post on social media sites could be used against them.  I suggest living by these two simple rules.  1.  Assume a stranger with bad intentions will read your post, meaning they will see and have access to the information.  2.  Think about the worst case scenario of how that information could be used against you and decide if you could live with the outcome before you post.  

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