Windows 10: Wife received a very disturbing email.

Dear Sirs:
My wife received this email from a so called Microsoft Billing USA.
With a so called Fraudulent phone # 917-737-5339 from Microsoft.
They only are billing us for $3437.88*Mad
We haven't ordered anything from Microsoft.
Order confirmation # is MS-1074828.
Thought you might want to warn others.
We of course will just delete the message.

:)

 

Wife received a very disturbing email.

Dear Sirs:
My wife received this email from a so called Microsoft Billing USA.
With a so called Fraudulent phone # 917-737-5339 from Microsoft.
They only are billing us for $3437.88*Mad
We haven't ordered anything from Microsoft.
Order confirmation # is MS-1074828.
Thought you might want to warn others.
We of course will just delete the message.

 

Wife received a very disturbing email.

Move it to your spam folder so it's blocked. And.... done! *Smile

 

Wife received a very disturbing email.

It's not as obvious as you think. The number one cause of damage directly/indirectly to computers is through phishing. Most hacks start with a phishing campaign. Some go on for weeks, months, even years. I listened to a podcast by a well known security researcher who talked about a specially crafted phishing campaign (called spear-phishing) that swept through an entire company in order to obtain access to a single computer. The US government was a target of phishing, several times in fact. That's allegedly how Hillary Clinton's and John' emails were 'hacked'. These are TOP BRASS of arguably the most powerful government on the planet. Bad guys don't need to infect your computer with viruses disguised as real software anymore. The ransomware attacks that threatened states across the country all began with phishing emails. You don't need an elaborate virus made by a whizz kid like you see in the movies, all the effort is poured into social engineering these days to get information you need to then just walk on in to your where your victims sensitive information is. Most of the time it's practically given to the bad guys.

So it might be obvious to you, even to the OP, but research heavily suggests, and this is public information and widely known, it's not at all obvious to the majority of the global population who use computers whether technically proficient or not. Experts get phished all the time! The best phishing attempts are the ones that are the best crafted campaigns, and these often look no different to the genuine communications you receive. It may be a simple email from a work colleague whose on holiday asking you for access to work emails. It could be so intelligently crafted it follows up from some communication you've genuinely just had that the bad guy knows about through his/her information gathering phase. There's low level phishing which requires zero knowledge/experience and then there's high level criminal enterprises that can get through government security perimeters without ever sounding an alarm. They can then get through your perimeters pretty easily. These aren't your Nigerian prince emails either saying you've got a million dollars waiting for you.

Phishing is a real threat, man. You're not talking about the whole world when you talk about yourself in this example