new warning issued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) urged Internet users to beware of new phishing email scams purportedly originating from Payment gateways PayPal and the MetaMask crypto wallet platform.
A PayPal email alerts customers that BNC Billings has canceled their payment to Binance, while a MetaMask email informed customers that their cryptocurrency wallet has been blocked.
Both are scams, and the FTC asks recipients to forward such emails to reportphishing@apwg.org. They should not interact with the email and delete it immediately.
A convincing email purporting to be from PayPal is embellished with real colors, logos, and fonts. It also contains an unused invoice and in the body of the email there is a phone number leading directly to the scammer who then asks unsuspecting customers for sensitive information such as account passwords, payment details and personal information.
Twitter user OF24com describes how the invoice appears to use the legitimate PayPal domain, helping convince even the most experienced PayPal users to share their information.
While the PayPal phishing email uses alarming prices to scare customers into action, the MetaMask scam uses a sense of urgency. The content of the email reads:
“Due to the dramatic increase in the number of users of our platform, some wallets still need to manually update. You must update your wallets beforehand [date] keep your assets safe and accessible.
In an effort to protect citizens, the FTC advises victims to “slow down” and assess the email and their situation more thoroughly. We also advise you not to click on any links – if a company has shared a message with you, you will usually be able to find it on the website, in your account (accessed directly from the website) or by calling the company (again, directly from their website). The contact details provided in the email may not belong to the company in question.
Other general advice includes downloading and updating malware removal tools AND endpoint protection software.