Tax calculations can be, well, taxing, so a message from HMRC saying that there's been a mistake may not ring too many alarm bells. Some bring good news: you have overpaid and are owed a refund, but others claim you owe money. In both cases there's an imminent deadline to act sometimes with the threat of legal action, or penalties if you don't. Scammers are taking advantage of people's fears over bills to steal personal and banking information.
These forms can be created in minutes, with clean and clear formatting, official-looking images and video, and-most importantly of all-a genuine Google Docs URL that your web browser will see no problem with. Scammers can then use these authentic-looking forms to ask for payment details or login information. It's a type of scam that continues to spread, with Google itself issuing a warning about the issue in February.
"Like a real-world virus variant, this new 'ClickFix' strain quickly outpaced and ultimately wiped out the infamous fake browser update scam that plagued the web just last year."
In a newly discovered supply chain attack, attackers last week targeted a range of npm-hosted JavaScript type testing utilities, several of which were successfully compromised to distribute malware.
These arrests show we work across borders with our international partners to combat tax crime in all its forms. We have a number of live criminal investigations, and we are grateful to our Romanian partners for their support.
This particular UPS scam is a savvy one, at least in some ways. I received the message on my iPhone, with the sender labeled as unknown. By default, links in a text message from an unknown sender are disabled, so you can't click on them to open them. But the scammer used a sneaky trick to get around this obstacle.