WASHINGTON — It’s Tax Day and security experts have issued a warning after a new scam surfaced that’s fooling many across the country.
Meet Caleb Barlow. He and the X-Force Team at IBM in Massachusetts track scammers for a living.
“We collect about 35 million spam messages a day, we track bots, we look for all kinds of malicious activity.”
This tax season they said there’s a new scam called Trickbot. Here’s how it works: you receive an email from what appears to be a real accounting, tax or payroll firm. The email may even come from someone you trust, like an accountant.
The emails come with an attachment that contains malware.
“Unfortunately, people still click on emails and links that they’re not familiar with or shouldn’t be doing which is why these tricks still work and are still out there,” said Etay Maor.
Once they have access to your computer, all they have to do is wait for you to head to your online bank account.
“They’re gonna capture your credentials as you log into your bank account,” said Barlow.
But thankfully there are ways to spot a fake.
“What do you notice about this email that’s a little off?”
“Dot-email instead of dot-com.”
“Exactly.It should be paychex. com but if you zoom it here, it looks like it’s coming from paychex.email.”
Best rule of thumb, if you’re not sure, do not click on an email.
