2016-07-13 tbln-phishingp1
Posted: Wednesday, July 13, 2016 12:00 am
TulsaWorld.com
Citizens should be on the lookout for a suspicious email phishing scheme that appears to come from the Social Security Administration, said Gale Stallworth Stone, acting Inspector General of Social Security.
The Office of the Inspector General received reports that several hundred employees of a private company, with offices across the country, recently received an email message that appears to be from the Social Security Administration (SSA).
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The message alerts a recipient of “unusual” activity with his or her Social Security number.
The email subject line reads, “Review Your Social Security Activity”, and while the email sender displayed is “Social Security Administration,” the corresponding email address is ceriley@centurytel.net.
The message includes a PDF attachment with the heading “Notification.” It advises the recipient, “We detected something unusual about a recent use of your SSN” and “to help keep you safe, we required an extra security challenge.”
The message states that if the recipient did not recently use his or her SSN, then a “malicious user” might have misused the recipient’s number.
It asks the recipient to review recent activity via an embedded link, which links to a suspicious SSA-like site. To appear legitimate, the notice includes SSA’s official seal and the words “Social Security Administrator, United States Of America” in the signature.
This type of phishing scheme could lead to identity theft or Social Security benefit theft. Stone urges all citizens to be extremely cautious when receiving requests to provide personal information over the internet or the telephone.
“Don’t provide your Social Security number, bank account numbers or other personal information, including account passwords, over the Internet or by telephone unless you know and trust the source requesting it,” Stone said. “You should be extremely confident that the source is a legitimate entity, and that your information will be secure after you provide it.”
Before clicking an embedded email link, try to verify the source. One method of verifying the true source is to hover over the linked text, without clicking, to reveal the destination address.
If a person has questions about any communication — email, letter, text or phone call — that claims to be from SSA, Stone recommended contacting a local Social Security office or calling the agency’s toll-free customer service number at 1-800-772-1213, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday to verify its legitimacy. (Those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can call Social Security’s TTY number at 1-800-325-0778.)
Lesa Jones
lesa.jones@tulsabusiness.com
Twitter: @LesaLJones
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