This is a brief scam email pretending to send you an attached Fax |
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Like many scams this scam email comes in various guises. Either loaded with an attachment or link to click on.
What does the email look like?
In the example above you can replace YourName etc. with your personal email address.
The attachment is a .htm file. This means it is coded with HTML like a web page and therefore can contain malicious code. If you click to open it, it will attempt to install a trojan virus designed to steal your passwords and banking information.
Who is eFax?
eFax are a genuine company that offer an online Fax service. They have nothing to do with the scam.
Spotting the scam indicators
There are several things that you should notice:
Poor attempt at your personal information
They will attempt to create your personal information like "E-Fax Attached for YourDomain" but often will not accurately use your actual personal name.
Brevity
They write very little information in the body of your email because the strategy is to attract your curiosity to open the attachment
Sender's Email Address
The email address of the sender in this example is your own address. They are using a program to send the email out from no specific address (just like the form on a website) but will spoof the sender using your address.
So even if you tried to reply (which you should never do!) you will be sending it to yourself.
Date in Subject
A date is used in the subject e.g. E-Fax Attached for yourdomain - Nov 21 2022
This is used by the scammers for two reasons:
- To make it look genuinely 'current' to you
- To create a unique subject for the email
That second reason is used because junk email services block large numbers of emails sent with an identical subject line.
What can you do to stop these?
Definitely do not open the attachement - just delete the email
What if I opened the attachement?
If you have robust up-to-date AntiVirus protection it will probably have blocked the attempt to install the trojan. To make sure you should delete the email and then carry out a full scan. If you're not sure, please Contact Us for advice.