Phishing Attack: An important message regarding your HughesNet account

[El Dorado Netwo]

This is a Phishing Attack Email that was sent out this morning to @hughes.net Email users. Ignore it. It's an attempt to steal your personal information:

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: An important message regarding your HughesNet account
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2016 14:11:53 +0200
From: HughesNet <updates@hughes.net>
To: victim@hughes.net

Dear VALUED
CUSTOMER,

We're writing to inform you that your
account informations must be updated, by updating your informations you
keep your account active.

Please log in to your account and update your information immediately to avoid service interruption.

Update Now (Redirect link at http://bit.ly disabled by Alan)

For your security, please dont submit your information and details by email.

if you have any question, we are pleased to be able to assist you as part of the service we provide, also you can click here to view our
Frequently Asked Questions. 

Thank you for using our service.

Sincerely,
HughesNet Customer Care 

Simply ignore and delate this Email. Never click on links on these kinds of Emails or disclose your personal information online.

HughesNet will never send you these kinds of requests. Neither will your bank, credit union, Google, Hotmail, etc. or any legitimate organization send you these kinds of Emails.

Also see this Forum topic: https://community.myhughesnet.com/hughesnet/topics/beware-of-fake-hughesnet-phishing-scam-email

[donsjgm]

Hi Alan,
Good looking out!
Hope everybody reads this.

Don  🙂

[Liz]

Thanks Alan!

And if you're feeling proactive, you can also report these phishing attempts to us so our e-mail admins can block this from other HughesNet subscribers! Here's how:
https://community.myhughesnet.com/hughesnet/topics/report_suspicious_official_hughesnet_e_mail

-Liz

[donsjgm]

Hi Liz,
I'm sure Alan will take care of business but thank you for the link for a proactive way to help protect other users.
Keep up the good work.

Don  🙂

[BirdDog]

That one doesn't even have the famous "failure to avert will revert" phrase. Sneaky buggers.

[donsjgm]

Sneaky buggers is right!

[Gwalk900]

There sure has been a lot of these lately.

The old rule of thumb applies here:

Never, never, never click on a link in an email ... even if you know the sender.

Account information may be obtained from your dashboard or by calling the official Hughes support number.

Never open an email attachment .... even if you know the sender. The senders computer may be infected and the virus/malware is sending a copy of itself to everyone in the infected computers address book.

My procedure for attachments is to have a prearrange keyword that is typed into the email subject line so that I know the sender intended to send the attachment. A "bot" would not know this. No keyword, delete it !

[El Dorado Netwo]

Amen, Greg,

Big spike lately in Email attachments infected with RansomWare payloads.

Now that criminals have figured out how to encrypt all your files and extort hundreds of dollars from innocent victims, expect to see more of this.

Please, PLEASE, folks, resist the temptation to click on these links or attachments.

Keep your Anti-Virus software up to date, run a full scan frequently, and don't think you're safe just because you're using Mac.

[donsjgm]

Greg, Alan,
Several months ago I got caught with a similar "dropbox" phishing scam, which sent an email to everyone in my contacts.
Since it came from someone I know, it sucked me in.
I hate when that happens! Lol

[Gwalk900]

Since it came from someone I know, it sucked me in.

Which proves the point: Never, regardless of source, click on a email link ... very DANGERIOUS.

[donsjgm]

Amen to that!

[Gwalk900]

This also a good time to bring up the point of the value of having a "system image"

Never trust a machine that has been compromised ....

If you get "had", play it safe, reload your system from a known good system image and learn from your mistake.

You really can't be 100% positive of any "cleanup" efforts.

Backup, Backup, Backup

[El Dorado Netwo]

Right, and that system image needs to be backed up on a drive that can't be accessed from your computer. The latest Crypto viruses are also deleting shadow volume copies if they can get to them.

[donsjgm]

If there was ever more IMPORTANT ADVICE, Gwalk has said it!!!
I keep an independent clone of my HDD as well as a running backup.
Notice Top Right of the attached screenshot:

[donsjgm]

Mac users,
Follow Alan's advice!
Time Machine, while a great asset is subject to corruption of malware too.
While I do use TM, I don't rely solely on it alone.
Any Mac user who wants instructions to use their Terminal and dd commands to make clones of their HDD need just to ask.