Whois (CEO Lee Chung-jong), a company specializing in hosting domains, made an emergency announcement that its users must pay careful attention as there has been an increase in harmful phishing e-mails that are sent through fake return addresses.
Phishing e-mails can cause serious harms as they include files and links that can steal various personal information or infect computers with malicious codes.
A method that is mostly popular at the moment is a type of a phishing e-mail that forges return address so that return address and receiving address are marked exactly the same. It induces a person to click a file or a link that is included.
Also, a type of a phishing e-mail that can cause anxiety within a person by pretending to be an e-mail that is sent from a government office such as a court, police office, or prosecutor office.
Besides these types, there are also types of phishing e-mails that pretend to be someone from a company or a someone from a customer by having ‘request for invoice’ as the topic of an e-mail. A type of a phishing e-mail that sends a link to a person to have him or her set up his or her log-in information again while saying that his or her SNS account or e-mail has been hacked is also becoming popular.
“Due to rapid increase in number of inquiries from our customers saying that their e-mails have been hacked, it is not advisable to trust an address with just return address since a return address can easily be forged or modified.” said Department Head Jung Ji-hoon of Whois. “Suspicious e-mails should be deleted right away without clicking any link or file.”
Whois added that its users must delete e-mails with information about possibility of being hacked, e-mails that request money, e-mails with unknown files, and e-mails with links as necessary security measures.
Staff Reporter Ahn, Soomin | smahn@etnews.com