By Staff
December 28th, 2016
BURLINGTON, ON
If there is a pdf file attached to an incoming email from a person or an organization that you do not know anything about – open that pdf at your peril.
This symbol is used to identify a pdf file
PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It is a file format used to present and exchange documents reliably, independent of software, hardware, or operating system. Invented by Adobe, PDF is now an open standard which can be used by anyone. What the crooks are doing now is burying code inside a pdf that can infect your computer.
We saw the following in our email this morning:
This is an email message telling me there are details about a bank transfer. The details are inside the pdf file. all I have to do is click on it. The moment I do that the process of stealing my identity begins. If in doubt – don’t.
We have no idea who the email is from – never heard of the organization – but we do know that banks do not communicate like this.
When you see something like this – don’t open it.
If you see something you aren’t certain about – better to be safe than sorry – take a pass on it.
If in doubt – don’t.
Once a hacker has gotten you to respond to their phony message they can go through code that you aren’t really aware of and pick out pieces of data that will aid them in stealing funds from your bank account. it happens every day – don’t let it happen to you.
Along the same lines. We got an email card from a name that we know – but chose not to open it. We don’t know what is in that card and while we know the sender his name could have been pulled any number of sources.
If in doubt – don’t.
We didn’t
