ALERT! Important Information on Most Recent Email Scam
What is phishing?
Phishing is a common type of email scam designed to trick you into disclosing your personal or financial information for the purpose of financial fraud or identity theft.
Most recently numerous organizations have been victimized by a form of business email compromise. The individual in your organization who typically handles tax information (W2s) for your employees will receive an email from a cyber criminal impersonating the CEO or other executive level employee. The email appears to be from the CEO, and states the following1:
Subject: SALARY REVIEW
Hello
Kindly send me the 2015 W-2 (PDF) of our company staff for a quick review
Thanks
Numerous employees have followed instruction and replied by sending PDF containing sensitive employee information, including names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers. Thinking information was being sent to the company CEO, it was instead sent to the cyber criminal for identity theft. Even if employee information is not listed on your corporate website, cyber criminals are finding information from social media platforms—such as LinkedIn—to spoof email addresses.
Educate your employees against the dangers of phishing emails and cyber crimes because once your information has been compromised, it’s virtually impossible to retrieve.
1 Source: Scott Augenbaum, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Email Notification 3/10/16
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James Walker, Regional Director of Managed IT Services
James oversees the Chattanooga, Nashville and Huntsville markets of our managed IT Services department. In his role he manages service delivery and support of engineers in all regions, does security and compliance auditing, and works with businesses in network design, implementation and troubleshooting. He has been in the technology industry for over 24 years. James is originally from Boston, MA and works out of our Chattanooga office. He joined RJ Young in January 2013 through the acquisition of his previous company, Preferred Computers, Inc.