A new email scam’s doing the rounds, folks, and this one seems to be specifically targeting Optus customers.
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According to Mailguard, the emails are even coming from an optusnet.com.au domain, so they look scarily real, News.com.au reports. They’ll usually be offering something a little off kilter, like car insurance, for example, or simply providing a link to an invoice. Of course, the invoice is actually malware of some description, which is absolutely not what you want.
“The format of these emails is similar, with most appearing in plain-text form,” Mailguard said in a blog post. “They advise the recipient of a document that is available for them, with a link to access the said document. In most cases, the links lead unsuspecting recipients to a malicious file download.”
You can see a screenshot example collected by Mailguard below.
There are quite a few similar scams getting around outside of Optus, as well, but it looks like the telco is copping the brunt of them at the moment. There are, however, a few ways you can protect yourself.
Firstly, anyone telling you they’re sending an invoice in a zip file is incredibly suspicious. A zip file is used to compress its contents to a smaller file size, but documents like an invoice are already quite small (unless it’s an enormously long one), so there’s really no need to put it in a zip. They’ve likely done that to hide the malicious file type.
You should also be able to hover over the link to see its exact location. If it looks dicey, don’t click it. You should also make sure your computer has up to date virus protection. If you’re running Windows 10, it should do this automatically.
At the end of the day, if something looks suss or has spelling mistakes, it’s probably dodgy. If in doubt, you can always call Optus and check the legitimacy of the email, that way, you’ll know for sure.
Stay safe on the line, folks.
