It’s usual for phishers to use natural catastrophes as a lure to get ‘donations’ to line their pouches instead of helping the sufferers and the California wildfires are no exception. A lot of people have lost their lives in the fires and the death toll is likely to increase further as hundreds of people are still unaccounted for.
Entire towns such as Paradise have been completely devastated by the wildfires and hundreds of people have lost their homes. Numerous are suffering, have nowhere to reside, and have lost everything. As expected many people desire to donate money to assist the sufferers rebuild their lives. The attackers are using the sympathy of others to deceive companies.
A California wildfire phishing cheat was recently noticed by Agari that tries to capitalize on the tragedy. Nevertheless, contrary to several similar phishing campaigns that depend on huge volumes of electronic mails, this campaign is much more targeted.
The scammer is carrying out a business electronic mail compromise attack using the electronic mail account – or a deceived account – of the CEO of a firm. The first phase of the scam involves a rapid electronic mail to a worker questioning if they are available to assist. When a response is received, a second electronic mail is sent asking the worker to make a purchase of 4 Google Play gift cards, each of $500.
The CEO asks if there is a local store where the cards can be bought and asks the worker to make the purchase ASAP and to scratch off the reverse side, get the codes, and email them back. The electronic mail claims the CEO requires the cards to send to customers who have been caught up in the wildfires to provide help.
While the selected method of sending help is doubtful, to say the least, and the electronic mails have grammatical and spelling mistakes, the use of the CEO’s electronic mail account may persuade workers to go ahead as ordered. These cheats work because workers do not want to ask their CEO and desire to reply swiftly. Even though a request may be strange, the reasoning behind the request seems perfectly genuine.
Although this might seem like an obvious fraud, at least worthy of a call or text to the CEO to confirm its validity, some workers will no doubt not question the request. Each one that does as trained will cost the company $2,000.
This kind of cheat is common. They are often associated with wire transfer requests. In the rush to reply to the CEO’s request, a transfer is made, which might be for tens of thousands of dollars. The worker replies to the message through electronic mail saying the transfer has been made, the scammer erases the electronic mail, and the fake transfer is often not detected until after the scammer has used money mules to withdraw the money from the account.
Access to the CEO’s electronic mail account can be obtained in several ways, even though a spear phishing attack is common. Spam filtering solutions can assist to decrease the possibility for the first attack to take place and two-factor verification controls can avoid account access if identifications are stolen.
Staff training is vital to increase awareness of the danger of BEC attacks. Policies must also be applied that need all transfer requests sent through electronic mail, and any out-of-bounds requests, to be confirmed over the phone or through a text before a transfer is made.