Several Green Technology clients have received emails from a “professional” photographer or illustrator, claiming you have copyrighted images on your website, with the intent to scare you and trick you into clicking on a link. There are minor variations to the wording, but all have the same general structure:

  • Some of the professions the scammer is claiming to be include: Professional Photographer, Licensed Photographer, Experienced Photographer and Illustrator, Qualified Illustrator.
  • They also come from a name similar to “Mel” with variations including Melvin, Melina, Melissa, Melonie, etc.
  • Most significantly, the emails will also have a link to a google drive document…

DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK!

This is a classic phishing scheme – the scammer wants his email victim to click on the link which goes to a Google Drive hosted file that contains malware. Once you click on it, your computer might become infected and lead to serious vulnerabilities not only on your device but possibly on your network, thus infecting even more machines.

This scam has been circulating for several months and if you click on the link, the hacker may then be able to do any of the following:

  • Hold your device hostage demanding a ransom.
  • Use access to your machine to compromise your other accounts like email or banking.
  • Inject worms, which are viruses that infect your machine and use it to launch attacks against others.

Below are some samples received by actual Green Tech clients:

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If you receive an email similar to this, once again – DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK!

You might receive the email directly to your inbox or through the contact form on your website.

If you or anyone else in your office have gotten emails like this and CLICKED on the link, CONTACT US IMMEDIATELY so we can start performing a security check on your computer and/or network.

Finally, please INFORM EVERYONE in your office or workplace to keep an eye out for emails similar to these and to NEVER click on suspicious links or links from someone they do not know.

We at Green Technology Services want all our clients to be safe and secure in all their digital activities and to always be on the lookout for possible scams. If you are in doubt, contact us and ask – this is a situation where it is definitely better to be safe than sorry!