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We’ve found a large number of scams that you should watch out for, including ones relating to American Express, Amazon, Netflix, Costco, and Walmart. Would you have been able to spot all the scams?
Impersonating famous brands and companies, scammers will send out phishing links (usually via text message or email) and try to entice you into opening them with various lies. As seen below, these phishing links will lead to malicious websites containing fake log-in pages.
We’ve reported extensively on phishing emails that pose as banks, and this week we’ve detected multiple fake security alert emails purporting to be from American Express:
Falsely claiming that you need to validate your account, the scammers prompt you to click on the embedded link, which will take you to a fake American Express log-in page (often difficult to tell apart from the legitimate one).
Scammers can record all the log-in information you’ve submitted on these fake pages. With it, they can take control of your account and use if for their own criminal activities. Don’t get scammed!
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Similar tricks are also seen in other phishing attempts. For example, we’ve observed some fake Amazon security alerts this week:
As mentioned, the link will take you to a fake log-in page where you could expose all your sensitive credentials:
Sample fake Amazon log-in page
We’ve seen far too many Netflix phishing scams before. Don’t click on the links from random text messages!
Phishing links will also take you to online survey pages that state you can claim a gift by filling out an online questionnaire. Below are some examples:
Costco is one of the most impersonated brands in phishing scams. Featuring a $90 gift card, scammers will lure you into taking an online survey to claim a gift:
You will be taken to a scam survey page and asked to submit your personal information. Again, it will end up in scammers’ hands to be used for other cybercrime. Don’t let them!
If you receive a Walmart text message about a delivery, please don’t click on the attached link:
You’ll likely end up exposing personal information on another fake survey page, including your address and credit card details. Be careful!
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This article was published in collaboration with Trend Micro
