Lauren's Blog: "Warning: New European Privacy Law Has Become a Jackpot for Internet Crooks"

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
> Date: May 1, 2018 at 5:39:02 PM EDT
> To: nnsquad () nnsquad org
> Subject: [ NNSquad ] Lauren's Blog: "Warning: New European Privacy Law Has Become a Jackpot for Internet Crooks"
>
>
> Warning: New European Privacy Law Has Become a Jackpot for Internet Crooks
>
> https://lauren.vortex.com/2018/05/01/warning-new-european-privacy-law-has-become-a-jackpot-for-internet-crooks
>
>
> A quick but important warning. As you may know, a new misguided
> European Union privacy-related regulation -- the GDPR (General Data
> Protection Regulation) -- is coming into force.
>
> This has triggered many websites sending out confusing notices about
> new GDPR rules, demands that users click-through URLs to accept the
> new regulations, and a range of other complicated and confusing
> notifications.
>
> I'm now receiving reports of highly deceptive scam phishing emails
> that falsely purport to be these kinds of notifications, often
> including URLs "requiring" you to "accept" these regulations or make
> other changes on your accounts to supposedly avoid disruption of
> services.
>
> The crooks have had plenty of time to prepare for this, so many of
> these scamming emails are extremely well designed. It can be nearly
> impossible to determine if some of them are legitimate or not, even
> with careful inspection of the email headers available to most users.
>
> I strongly recommend that unless you are certain that an email asking
> or demanding that you take particular actions relating to new privacy
> rules is legitimate, that you do not click on any contained links, nor
> open any included attachments.
>
> If the message appears to have come from an entity with whom you
> regularly deal -- and remember that just because an email claims to
> come from a firm or other organization that you happen to work with,
> doesn't mean that the message is actually from them! -- you should
> consider contacting that firm or organization for verification via a
> known email address or known URL from your own bookmarks -- or a URL
> that you type in yourself. Or call them on the phone, using their
> public phone numbers (not a phone number from the email). Again, do
> not click any links in those messages unless you are entirely
> convinced that they are not fakes!
>
> What a shame that European regulators apparently didn't feel it
> necessary to notify users about how easily the GDPR could become an
> entirely new vector for crime.
>
> --Lauren--
> Lauren Weinstein (lauren () vortex com): https://www.vortex.com/lauren 
> Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
> Google Issues Mailing List: https://vortex.com/google-issues



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