WARNING – DVLA – Dangerous Spoof ‘Phishing’ E-Mail & Attachment
No. 565/2020 Our Ref: V4/20
To: All Branches
Dear Colleagues,
WARNING – DVLA – Dangerous Spoof ‘Phishing’ E-Mail & Attachment:
The majority of CWU members drive as part of their employment and an even bigger number drive privately. This message is therefore important to everyone.
The Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) have warned the UK public about a widespread spoof, ‘phishing’ e-mail which is currently being circulated to homes across the nation by cyber-criminal scammers who are trying to trick drivers into completing a fake form and handing over personal information and access to bank accounts.
‘Phishing’ is now sadly a common fraudulent, criminal practice of sending out emails purporting to be from government agencies, police, banks, insurers or reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers. Cyber criminals will contact people via e-mail, out of the blue and attempt to convince them to hand over their personal information or money or to open an attachment and download a virus that infects the victim’s computer.
Apart from email, scammers also use texts, social media or phone calls.
Usually, the hacker will send out counterfeit messages to multiple individuals, requesting they take urgent action on something. In previous years, these messages were easy to detect and were often ignored and deleted. Nowadays, cyber criminals seem to be doing extensive research and get to know their target, their weaknesses and online habits so that their ‘urgent email’ is fitting for the receiver.
‘Phishing’ attempts have grown 65% in the last year in the UK and 30% of the people receiving ‘phishing’ messages actually open them and click on the malicious attachments or links.
The ‘spoof’ DVLA e-mail threatens drivers that if they fail to complete the form attached to the e-mail their licence will be terminated.
The Spoof ‘phishing’ email is described as follows:
From: Driver And Services Performance:[669757advlxq384269]@voobe
Subject: #-Driver-Gov.UK | Application form confirmation| item No.UK20518867
A COPY OF THE SPOOF ‘PHISHING’ E-MAIL IS ATTACHED FOR YOUR INFORMATION – PLEASE ENSURE DRIVING MEMBERS ARE WARNED.
Yours sincerely Dave Joyce National Health, Safety & Environment Officer
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