Phising emails increase

[#1]

Over the past few days I have received two particular instances of phishing. Both concern the US tax service  (IRS).

I have only ever communicated with them through two parties : plusnet e-mail and an American publisher. However the scammers appear to have hacked one of these sources or the information has been leaked. I have advised the publisher, who deny that their system is the source. The IRS are probably above suspicion so that leaves me with only one possible source.

Obviously, I can't prove anything but the chance of this being a coincidence is vanishingly small..  

[#2]

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@JayMoly wrote:

have received two particular instances of phishing.

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You should always forward such emails to:

report@phishing.gov.uk

You will get a near instant autoreply thanking you.

[@stuck]

@stuck

Thanks for the advice. However, I do report all the phishing to phishing.gov.

Certain suppliers also have their own phishing trackers.... EVRI are an example: phishing.evri.com.

I also reported them to the American IRS :https://www.irs.gov/help/report-fraud/report-fake-irs-treasury-or-tax-related-emails-and-messages.

[#4]

I’ve been getting around 10/12 spam emails every day for the last fortnight, when previously I was maybe getting 1 or 2 a month. Some of them have spoofed the senders address to make it look like I’ve sent them to myself. Some are coming from Russian addresses & although I am blocking every address days later I get the same, or similar, emails but from a different address. Many have attachments, which may or may not be harmful (I don’t click on any link or attachment).

I don’t know why this has started to happen & have wondered if my email address has been compromised somewhere. But as I’ve seen that many of you are having similar problems I am now wondering if the problem lies with Plusnet? Are they aware of this issue &/or have they made any announcements to say they are investigating?

Thanks 🙁

[#5]

Hi All,

My experience is as described by other users above. Lots of phishing mails (5 plus a day), mainly on the subject of bogus email server issues (mailbox full; need to reconfirm password etc.) along with occasional mail from HR awarding me a healthy pay rise (very kind!).

All are purporting to come from emails at my f9 account name. Actual origin seems to be random (South Africa, India).

Regards,

Jim

[#6]

It's interesting that others have noticed an increase. As far as I know Plusnet have not acknowledged that there might be a problem... as such they probably are not investigating. I did mention the problem to one of their technical advisors but did not register it as a complaint. As a precaution I am moving critical stuff to different providers and closing inboxes down progressively.

[#7]

 The plot thickens...........

During a previous mass migration to greenby  a similar phenomenon seems to have arisen.

In April of this year, In the topic Re: Plusnet email moving to Greenby @pvmb ,@BruceArden and others logged  comments  that they had noticed an increase

to which @Townman replied 

These things happen and has nothing to do with this activity beyond coincidence.  No mail accounts have been moved yet.

[#8]

“As a precaution” - on what way?

Having an email address is like having a letterbox in your front door.  Junk mail will arrive through it.

There is nothing magical about just stopping spam - spam patterns need to to learnt and then filtered.  These things thus come in waves, sometimes tidal waves.

How does changing to a different email service afford protection beyond ditching a harvested email address might be akin to nailing the letterbox shut.

These things the right precautions are to run decent anti virus tools and NEVER click on a link in an unsolicited email.

[#9]

Further in this matter, Ive raised an issue with Plusnet this morning. 

If I havent been migrated to Greenby yet, as Ive not received any communications from them or Plusnet, then surely something has happened to the spam filters Plusnet say they have in place? Since the end of October I’ve had 171 spam/phishing emails arrive, when I used to get a couple a month.

[#10]

When things like this happen I tend to use Occam's Razor.

The most likely cause is the obvious link....

Previous situation before transfer announced to me :: Very little spam/phishing

Emails are announced to be be transferred;;; Spam is increasing

[#11]

@Townman is correct  "...  the right precautions are to run decent anti virus tools and NEVER click on a link in an unsolicited email."

I appreciate that sending anything through e-mail is like putting it on the back of a postcard (if anyone remembers these); you shouldn't expect privacy. This is my reason for shifting to alternatives. The new channel may be subject to hacks but until it's discovered it's like moving house and not telling anyone... Hopefully this provides a breathing space and makes it more difficult to track. In the old days this was called 'doing a moonlight flit'

[#12]

@JayMoly 

Thank you for the smile I needed today!

[#13]

As a force9 customer I am experiencing the same unwelcome increase in phishing emails. I believe they are all coming from one source and the fact that a lot of the fake sender details are from Russian addresses is significant. As far as I know my email has not yet been migrated but I am now an unhappy bunny. I have had to set up a Gmail account to replace my force 9 address. Up to now retention of that address has been the main reason that I have stayed with Plusnet all these years. I wonder if the bosses considered that factor when they decided to dump a vital service. If the rise in spam and plusnets withdrawal are not just coincidence then I wonder why it hasn't affected other ISPs?

[#14]

@pedroc Have you checked the full headers to determine the true source? Are they basically all the same kind of spam/phishing?

Can you prove it 'hasn't affected other ISPs'?

[#15]

How do folks think spam filtering works?  There’s no magic involved … it’s done by informed profiling.  Users receive some they deem as spam, report it as spam and then the anti-spam services create a filter signature for the source / profile.

This is the cause also of false positives when assessing spam - people who once subscribed to something they did want … then report the comms as spam when they decide they no longer want the comms.  It’s an unhelpful decision - the right decision is to UNSUBSCRIBE.