Email phishing attacks in Sint Maarten
Published on: Dec 08, 2021
Bureau Telecommunications and Post St. Maarten have been alerted of an email phishing scam that is currently taking place in our territory called "Email Impersonation" and "Email Spoofing", and have self also fall victim to this.
Email impersonation is a technique whereby cybercriminals create email addresses that look legitimate to trick their targets into trusting them. Email Spoofing is a technical process where the attacker modifies an email’s headers so the receiving email client displays a false email address.
Successful attacks can have serious consequences for companies as the harvested credentials can be used to gaining unauthorized network access, or bypassing access controls.
Ways to spot a scam:
• Misspelled names and words in emails
• Bad grammar
• Hurried language and requests demanding urgent action
• Unfamiliar greeting or salutation
• Strange or big requests with financial implications
• Emails requesting login credentials, payment information or sensitive data
• No email signature or contact information
• Suspicious links and/ or attachments
• Use of website that are bare boned and “unsecure”
To keep your own network safe, your are advised to observe the following best practices:
• Watch for email senders that use suspicious or unknown email addresses or misleading domain names
• Inspect URLs carefully to make sure they’re legitimate and not imposter sites
• Do not click on links or attachments from senders that you do not recognize or from contacts not already in your contact list
• Do not click on links from emails that you weren’t expecting or raise any sort of suspicion
• Be wary of .zip or other compressed or executable file types
• Do not try to open any shared documents that you’re not expecting to receive
• Do not provide sensitive personal information (like usernames and passwords) over email. BTP will never ask for that
If you receive an e-mail from BTP that you suspect to be a Phishing attempt, or if you are unsure of an e-mail’s legitimacy, please do not respond. Instead, call us at +1(721)-5424699 to verify.
Successful attacks can have serious consequences for companies as the harvested credentials can be used to gaining unauthorized network access, or bypassing access controls.
Ways to spot a scam:
• Misspelled names and words in emails
• Bad grammar
• Hurried language and requests demanding urgent action
• Unfamiliar greeting or salutation
• Strange or big requests with financial implications
• Emails requesting login credentials, payment information or sensitive data
• No email signature or contact information
• Suspicious links and/ or attachments
• Use of website that are bare boned and “unsecure”
To keep your own network safe, your are advised to observe the following best practices:
• Watch for email senders that use suspicious or unknown email addresses or misleading domain names
• Inspect URLs carefully to make sure they’re legitimate and not imposter sites
• Do not click on links or attachments from senders that you do not recognize or from contacts not already in your contact list
• Do not click on links from emails that you weren’t expecting or raise any sort of suspicion
• Be wary of .zip or other compressed or executable file types
• Do not try to open any shared documents that you’re not expecting to receive
• Do not provide sensitive personal information (like usernames and passwords) over email. BTP will never ask for that
If you receive an e-mail from BTP that you suspect to be a Phishing attempt, or if you are unsure of an e-mail’s legitimacy, please do not respond. Instead, call us at +1(721)-5424699 to verify.