Text Message Warning

Social Engineering: We Were Targeted! January was a busy month for hackers and social engineers! We have a couple VERY targeted examples that hit our team. We knew what was happening right away but saved some examples so we can tell you what to look for.

This event targeted several of us. Matt got a text to his personal cell phone, from ‘me’ saying ‘Hello Matt! Let me know if you got this text and if you are in the office, Thanks.’ It was signed ‘Catherine Wendt President Syscon Inc.’ Dan got the exact same message to his personal cell phone, then Ryan. Then a couple of us received some requests to buy gift cards, again as if they were from me. One of the messages offered 300,000 ‘Chris points,’ something we’ve joked about with each other—how would they know that?

Pretty alarming that they had some of our personal cell phone numbers, but you might remember a previous story we ran about People Search, an online website with way more info than Chris expected. What would your team have done? Would they have sent each other a few Teams messages to find out what was going on? Would they have warned each other? What regular warnings and tips have shared with YOUR team members? Perhaps this is a good place to start! – CMW