New scam - Cheeky feckers

[robemcdonald]

I was doing a Teams training session with a new staff member today.

He got a WhatsApp message from our MD saying he was in a meeting and he needed the new guy to do an urgent task for him.

The new guy (we will call him Dave for the purposes of this post) started a whatsapp exchange telling me what the replies were.

It didn't take long for the red flags to appear and the "MD" wanted him to go and guy some apple gift cards.

At this point I told Dave to pull the plug assuring him that if it were real I'd take the blame.

We reported it to IT and it looks like 3 other new starters were similarly targeted.

I'm guessing they are getting their information from linked in, targeting new starters that may be more easily duped.

Apparently the next stage of the scam is to get Dave to send over the numbers on the gift cards which can then be used...


Watch out for this one


Absolute s.

[bigandclever]

I always think it’s worth warning people, but it’s not new

[robemcdonald]

bigandclever said:

I always think it’s worth warning people, but it’s not new

New to me then. I wonder what these people could achieve if they turned their ingenuity to legitimate endeavours.

[bmwmike]

robemcdonald said:

New to me then. I wonder what these people could achieve if they turned their ingenuity to legitimate endeavours.

I often wonder that too. Or perhaps their ingenuity takes them so far legitimately and they naturally lend toward ripping people off as the biggest/fastest bang for buck. Perhaps it is the ultimate market optimisation in action.

[sherman]

What if the MD was actually wanting gift cards to give out as a staff incentive but didnt want the other staff to find out/have time to di it himself so asked the new boy to sort it and you have just got him in trouble?

It is most likely a scam though.

[Jonmx]

robemcdonald said:

New to me then. I wonder what these people could achieve if they turned their ingenuity to legitimate endeavours.

They'd probably earn less. I try to engage some of the phone scammers in conversation and a few have told me it's far more lucrative than having an honest job, and that the rewards outweigh the risks.
Most of them I simply tell I've been busy with their mother or some other amusing but childish insult.

[Dromedary66]

Are the new starters' mobile numbers on the company website / linkedin then?

How did they spoof the MD's whatsapp account? Just a similarly named account with a different mobile number or something cleverer? Had they gone so far as to put his photo as the profile photo?

This is a very lucrative business for these s.

[Spare tyre]

I got asked to pay my council tax in iTunes vouchers

[robemcdonald]

Dromedary66 said:

Are the new starters' mobile numbers on the company website / linkedin then?

How did they spoof the MD's whatsapp account? Just a similarly named account with a different mobile number or something cleverer? Had they gone so far as to put his photo as the profile photo?

This is a very lucrative business for these s.

I think that’s pretty much it.

See who’s joined on LinkedIn, set up new false account (long term staff probably have the proper number on their phones) get the phone number from the company website. Job jobbed.

[Your Dad]

The only people in our org who receive phishing emails are those with Linkedin profiles.

[Mastodon2]

sherman said:

What if the MD was actually wanting gift cards to give out as a staff incentive but didnt want the other staff to find out/have time to di it himself so asked the new boy to sort it and you have just got him in trouble?

It is most likely a scam though.

Scams like this work because some people are naive enough to consider the possibility that it might be a legitimate request.

[robemcdonald]

Your Dad said:

The only people in our org who receive phishing emails are those with Linkedin profiles.

In some professions it’s a necessary evil.

[CoolHands]

You should fail the new recruit’s probation for being so thick

[juice]

CoolHands said:

You should fail the new recruit’s probation for being so thick

You should fail the company for not having proper security awareness programmes in place.

[RichardAP]

Any chance it was an internal security check. Our company regularly tests responses by sending out dodgy test emails.

[CoolHands]

juice said:

CoolHands said:

You should fail the new recruit’s probation for being so thick

You should fail the company for not having proper security awareness programmes in place.

I dunno, you can’t legislate for thickos

[bitchstewie]

The ones I really like are where the bad guys are in the email of the person they're sending the email from rather than "simply" spoofing the emails.

"You have an overdue Invoice please be clicking here to see it, cheers, Dave"

"Hi Dave, we haven't ordered anything from you for a long time so I don't think we had any overdue invoices is this link legitimate?"

"Sure it's safe please be clicking the invoice"

They'll be putting on Outlook rules typically so the real Dave can be logged into his email and might not even spot the replies coming in or the replies "he" is sending out.

Our staff are getting really good at spotting them but it's fking evil the level of involvement the bad guys are going to these days.

If you do nothing else multi-factor your email.

[juice]

CoolHands said:

I dunno, you can’t legislate for thickos

Of course you can, that's why you phish them and if they fail send them for more mandatory training.
You then monitor if they've completed the course and if not invoke the firewall policy to only allow them to access <X training website> until they've done it. Then phish them again until they pass.

[Alucidnation]

CoolHands said:

You should fail the new recruit’s probation for being so thick

Have you tried that other lane on that roundabout yet?

[CoolHands]

I’m still here aren’t I?!