Phishing Email Scam (where they use your email address)

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Level 1

19 points

Phishing Email Scam (where they use your email address)

There is a new phishing scam where the scammer reports to have some of your personal data from your "hacked computer." They want ransom in the form of bit coin. Now I see this is obivously a scam to get the unaware to pay this ransom but what sets his one apart is they used a spoof of my email address to send this to me.

I am 99.9% certain my computer was not hacked--the message said they hacked me through vunerabilities in my router--however what about my email account? I am using apple mail, not gmail or any other third party mail app. Could my apple email account be compirised or this probably just a spoof?

Running OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard

iMac (20-inch Early 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.8), None

Posted on Nov 18, 2018 7:10 PM

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Answer 1

Guest_9 Author

Level 1

19 points

Nov 20, 2018 7:32 PM in response to Guest_9

It appears this entire thing happened to some degree two years ago; I simply forgot, Re: Phishing Email or Hacked? (Please help). This thread confirms my beliefs that this is most likely another phishing attempt and nothing more.

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Answer 2

red_menace

Level 6

17,048 points

Nov 18, 2018 7:42 PM in response to Guest_9

There have been so many leaks of personal information, the question should be who doesn't have your email address. In some cases they may even have an old password (from those compromised sites) - those scam emails look even more legit, but it is very unlikely that your machine was hacked (especially if you do not use the same password for everything).

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Answer 3

red_menace

Level 6

17,048 points

Nov 19, 2018 8:13 AM in response to Guest_9

Yes, they would need your IP address for starters. Then they would need to get past whatever router/firewall you have on your internet connection, and whatever firewall you are running on your system, and then go around the system itself. That is a lot of work just for a remote chance of finding anything of value (to someone other than yourself). It is a lot easier to just trick or scare you into installing malware or volunteering personal information.

There are tons of bots out there, scraping email addresses from whatever they can find. If you have ever used an email address online (anywhere), it is likely that it is in a list (or several) somewhere. The current scam going around is just using information from old(er) security breaches such as MySpace, (or LinkedIn, or Adobe, or Exactis, or ...) to make it look like they know something about you.

That's not to say you shouldn't pay attention. Periodically changing passwords and reviewing your security settings is never a bad idea, even if you aren't receiving these kinds of scams. Security is a process, not a product.

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Answer 4

Guest_9 Author

Level 1

19 points

Nov 19, 2018 2:16 PM in response to red_menace

The phishing email senders address was mine except inside, for example:. No matter which device I send an email to myself from it always appears as just my name. Because of this I doubt this person actually had access to my email address and was spoofing me. My email address is linked to plenty of online accounts.

Should I change my computers admin password frequently as well?

Does knowing someone’s admin password help the hacker break in?

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Answer 5

red_menace

Level 6

17,048 points

Nov 19, 2018 5:04 PM in response to Guest_9

I wouldn't worry too much about changing an admin password that often unless you have reason to believe it has been compromised.

Anyone that has admin access to your machine can pretty much do what they want, and any application being run from an admin account has the same access.

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