Almost Got Me!

By Walter Boomsma, MSG Communications Director

Well, it wasn’t that close! Fortunately, I follow my own advice which includes “Think before you click.” By sheer coincidence, shortly after sending three emails, I received this one.

I’ve given you the advantage of highlighting the issues.

  • The subject of the email is wrong! If it was legitimate, the subject should have been “Unsuccessful Mail Delivery Report.” Oops!
  • The “from” email address isn’t legitimate and doesn’t make sense.
  • People (or bots) send email. Servers do not.

In what might be a strange irony, I am the “Mail Administrator” for the mainestategrange.org email. So, there’s very little about this email that makes sense–if we think about it. In fact, I’ve had issues with unsuccessful deliveries and the notices look nothing like this.

I’m confessing “they almost got me” as a reminder that bad people are getting more creative, but fortunately not much smarter. They don’t have to be smart–if they can hook (that’s why it’s called “phishing”) one or two people, they’re ahead of the game. Don’t get caught.