Laptop Blues: Hack Job #3
Busy week for scammers: a pox on trolls!
Yesterday, I got an email from “Best Buy” informing me of an attempt to change my password but that there was no account registered to my email and thus I would need to create one. It helpfully provided the link for me to do so.
Thanks to friends who’d learned the hard way, I knew to go to Best Buy’s official website and contact customer service. They did not send the email. The diabolical genius who did crafted a persuasive document that included realistic icons and actual links to the site. The tour de force was crowned by an ironic message of reassurance as to Best Buy’s meticulous fraud-prevention practices.
I knew it was a scam one way or the other. Even had Best Buy been the sender, given I never had an account, I would have inferred that someone was trying to get me to set one up for their use.
What is especially disheartening is that this latest hack occurred two days after I purchased virus detection software — Malewarebytes — at my son’s recommendation. Yesterday, it gave me a false “negative” as to infection with the latest variant: “solicitron.”
