HMRC Phishing scam email anyone?

[Dryad]

I have just received a 'phishing' scam email purporting to be an offer of a tax refund from HMRC. The thing is, my email address was acquired from this forum - probably the database where our account details are kept. How do I know? Because I only changed my ISP three weeks ago and I deliberately created a unique email address (chrisMMOC@...) specifically for my signing up to this site (as I have with other forums I use), having suffered a torrent of spam when I was with my old ISP, so that I could trace where the spammers got my address. On this occasion, this site is where they got it. I have NEVER posted my email address in any of my posts. Presumably, if they've got our email addresses they have also got our passwords. Anyone else received one yet?

Admin: please do something to increase security on this site!!!

[Boomlander]

Yes, received the same Email and forwarded it to the HMRC phishing dept.
Then Deleted It!!

[les]

I received mail also, I thought it was a one way street when it came to tax, so rumbled it!

[win]

I also appear to have managed to be placed on some "GULLIBLE MUGS SITE"
Not sure how to be remove, we just have to delete them, and hope they get fed up.

Any one any better ideas?

Regards Win

[morris van]

I have had two this year.

[Dryad]

Clearly, the security of this forum's server is feeble. Something needs to be done.

[POMMReg]

All you have to do is simply transfer £1000 from your bank to the Royal Bank of Botswana!!

Been waiting 3 years for the $100m Botswana dollars I won on their lottery. No response to my emails from Mr Bogobogo either!!

[les]

Glad I'm not the only one, he's probably just a bit behind with the admin. Funny there being two winners of that amount though.

[POMMReg]

Glad I'm not the only one, he's probably just a bit behind with the admin. Funny there being two winners of that amount though.

But the BIG difference being they chose MY name - plus a further £500 charge for admin - to be entered into the Central African Republic's health lottery for a WHOLE year!!!

[les]

Some people have all the luck!

[kennatt]

won 50thou and said don't do bank transfer just send me a cheque......... guess what

[TDV102]

As an IT tech I thought I'd offer my two-penneth. I've been using the same email for ages and don't get these. I do, however, have industrial strength security on my laptop. I use commercial antivirus plus anti-spyware software. I don't save passwords locally either, and history and cookies are cleared when I exit my browser. I also never use toolbar addins. If a new email address was copied within weeks it does suggest your system security may be compromised.

[amgrave]

For what it's worth I run a Linux system and the browser I use is Firefox with uBlock Origin ad blocker and have been visiting this site for over two years. Linux is a lot more secure than Windows as is a browser with an ad blocker and I have not been getting the emails mentioned. I do get the odd one every now and again but at the same frequency as before visiting this site. Try using an ad blocker with your browser as adverts on web sites are known to contain spyware and make sure to keep your Anti-Virus up to date along with frequent scans.

[irmscher]

Has Admin done anything about this

[Dryad]

As an IT tech I thought I'd offer my two-penneth. I've been using the same email for ages and don't get these. I do, however, have industrial strength security on my laptop. I use commercial antivirus plus anti-spyware software. I don't save passwords locally either, and history and cookies are cleared when I exit my browser. I also never use toolbar addins. If a new email address was copied within weeks it does suggest your system security may be compromised.

I, too, am (or was until five years ago) an IT tech, and I can assure you that I have industrial strength measures in place on my PCs - including a weekly scheduled full scan with Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool. I always and regularly install their security update patches AND schedule weekly scans with my AV and anti-spyware software. I have never installed so-called "helpful" toolbars and also have disabled my browser's feature to remember passwords, so the aquisition of my new email address could only have been obtained from one place. Besides, others on this forum appear to have received the same phishing attack. If there are hackers out there who can get into databases of multinational companies then there are certainly (probably 15-year-olds) who could break in to the MMOC's forum server in five seconds. Also, if my email address had been skimmed from my PC then why haven't I received phishing emails via my five other email addresses I set up at the same time? FAR more likely it's a security breach of this forum's server.

[amgrave]

If you were an I.T. tech I am surprised you are thinking the problems can only arise from this web site. These days it is possible to have malware in your router to skim email addresses and you would not even know it, even firewalled ones (just an example). If the site was the problem nearly all visitors would have the same problem and I don't think that is the case. Don't think I am having a go at you I'm trying to help you identify where the problem might be. You might have to think outside the box on this one as scammers are getting very cunning. Malware can come from one pixel in a picture, often adverts and can get round anti virus scans too. That's one of the reasons I like Linux, everything that wants to run has to ask permission and only you can give it even virus's.

[les]

Just don't give any bank details out, or have a dedicated account with little in it, and hope for the best. As for scams offering you something----- that's the clue!

[Dryad]

If you were an I.T. tech I am surprised you are thinking the problems can only arise from this web site. These days it is possible to have malware in your router to skim email addresses and you would not even know it, even firewalled ones (just an example). If the site was the problem nearly all visitors would have the same problem and I don't think that is the case. Don't think I am having a go at you I'm trying to help you identify where the problem might be. You might have to think outside the box on this one as scammers are getting very cunning. Malware can come from one pixel in a picture, often adverts and can get round anti virus scans too. That's one of the reasons I like Linux, everything that wants to run has to ask permission and only you can give it even virus's.

Well, let's look at the facts, shall we?:

1) Only one of my five new email addresses has been compromised.
2) My router is brand new, and if its security has been breached I think they would have had more than just one email address from me.
3) I have the most robust anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-malware looking after my system and it is scanned on a weekly basis.
4) Others have had the same experience, and I'm suprised, if you are indeed an IT tech, that you haven't considered the fact that most people's email is filtered by not only their email application, but by their ISP too, so if they have been sent phishing scams they are highly unlikely to know. I have deliberately switch off my ISP's filter because it was blocking legitimate emails.
5) I know only too well the traps and pitfalls of embedded viruses in web pages having researched this for my previous employer.

Us IT techs know that even the most robust of cybersecurity measures can be broken, and that the culprits are far more interested in obtaining people's private information in bulk rather than hacking into one individual's router to obtain one email address which is only linked to a Morris Minor forum. You appear to be suggesting that it is more likely the problem is at my end rather than with the MMOC's server - think again.

[amgrave]

Sorry if I have offended you, not my intention at all and as for your "at my end" is why I said you have to think outside the box, there is the whole world between your computer and the next.

[TDV102]

Sounds like your security is fine, your ISP may be the weak link. Also, does anyone else share your broadband? Are they protected as thoroughly?