Randomly chosen to update your AOL information? Beware phishing attack

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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@gcluley

A few of you may have noticed that the last digit of the year changed recently, which means it’s time to forget about the bad old days of 2010, make New Year’s resolutions, and cross fingers for a better future.

Some of you may already have fallen by the wayside in your pledge to no longer eat chocolate, or give up cigarettes, but here’s one thing I urge you to show greater will-power over: stop believing everything you read in email.

Scammers, malware authors and phishers continue to prey on the unwary by writing semi-believable things in a friendly font. Although many skeptical computer owners may consign such emails immediately to the garbage bin, there are always a few vulnerable folks who click before they think.

Take this current phishing campaign aimed at AOL users, for instance.

It reads, in part, as follows:

Our records indicate that your account hasn’t been updated as a part of our regular account maintenance. Our new SSL servers check each…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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