[access-uk] Re: Headsup: bogus and dangerous emails purporting to be from 'her majesty's corporate tribunal service'
- From: "Barry Hill" <barry.hill3@xxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2014 19:34:23 +0100
Sneaky. Thanks for the warning, Mike. Would you be able to post a copy of
the email, without the attachment of course, so that we can see exactly what
to look out for?
Cheers
Barry
-----Original Message-----
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Mike Ray
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2014 4:11 PM
To: Access-UK
Subject: [access-uk] Headsup: bogus and dangerous emails purporting to be
from 'her majesty's corporate tribunal service'
Hello list,
I generally have no trouble spotting bogus emails when they arrive.
Before now I have only ever seen emails which use our darkest desires as
the bait. Emails with 'I love you' and similar stuff in the title.
And of course emails from that nice Nigerian gentleman who always seems
to have ninety-thousand pounds in his pyjamas he wants to share.
This morning I received an email whose subject line suggested it was
from Her Majesty's Corporate Tribunal Service', if there is such a thing.
The body of the emailsounded very convincing, and extremely threatening,
suggesting some judgement had been made in my failure to appear.
Enough to make my blood run chilly for about ten seconds since I have
run companies in the past.
Sure enough there was an attachment, which was a zip file.
The zip file contained a file with the extension .docx.exe.
Of course I did not execute it and I am in no doubt the .exe extension
means it is definitely bogus.
But the text of the email is enough to scare the pants of you for a while.
I am sharing this on here because, as we are blind and visually
impaired, and as such find it hard to get a job, it means a lot of us
are self-employed and as such, such things as court summons documents
for late submission of statutory returns etc. is often in the backs of
our minds.
So...if you receive such an email, always, but always check the file
extension of any attachments, and don't execute anything.
I have always configured ANY Windows PCs I have to show file extensions.
The file in the zip attached to the email in question was:
something.docx.exe
On a PC with hidden file extensions, this file would appear as:
something.docx
Making you think it is a Word document.
Double clicking on that file would no doubt leave you with something
nasty on your computer.
If you don't want to always be able to see file extensions, or if you
cannot work out how to configure your PC to show them, check the
properties of any suspect file by using the context menu and selecting
'properties'. This will tell you the nature of the file.
Don't make it easy for the bad guys.
Mike
--
Michael A. Ray
Analyst/Programmer
Witley, Surrey, South-east UK
The box said: 'install Windows XP, 7 or better'. So I installed Linux
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