Internet Scams (aka Social Engineering) 2019

Phishing

Phishing is the attempt to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money), often for malicious reasons, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication

Spoofing

Hackers will often send out emails that will appear to come from a legitimate source but actually be used as a way to gain access to the network by asking for a person’s username and password.

If something doesn’t seem right about an email, please contact Technical Services or the original sender. As a note, we don’t terminate or expire accounts via email.

For the record, Scherzer International doesn’t use the following email addresses:

• Admin
• Administrator
• IT Support
• HelpDesk
• Postmaster
• Human Resources

On a side note, the IRS won’t call you or email you. If your bank emails you to perform a certain action, go directly their website, don’t click on their links

Phone Calls

Spammers will often call their victim with a phone number and not leave a message, prompting the victim to call back since it follows the US/Canadian phone number sequence of (3-digit number) followed by a three + four-digit number (e.g. (999)-555-1212)) the victim is then charged a ridiculous per-minute charge.

Numbers to avoid calling back are:

• 473
• 809
• 284
• 649
• 876
• 844
• 855

Other numbers to be mindful of:

• 242- Bahamas
• 441 – Bermuda
• 784 – St. Vincent & Grenadines
• 246 – Barbados
• 473 – Grenada, Carriacou, and Petite Martinique
• 809, 829, 849 – Dominican Republic
• 264 – Anguilla
• 649 – Turks and Caicos
• 868 – Trinidad and Tobago
• 268 – Antigua
• 664 – Montserrat
• 876 – Jamaica
• 284 – British Virgin Islands
• 758 – St Lucia
• 869 – St. Kitts & Nevis
• 345 – Cayman Islands
• 767 – Dominica