Business owners have once again been reminded to be on the lookout for suspicious emails, after thousands of fake invoices impersonating accounting software provider MYOB started hitting inboxes.

Antivirus software company Mailguard alerted users to the scam, which involves a legitimate-looking invoice being sent to email accounts that appears to come from MYOB.

The fraudulent MYOB email is well formatted and appears similar to a legitimate invoice, even linking to the real MYOB website in the body of the invoice.

However, keen eyes will notice the sender of the email is not MYOB itself, instead coming from a newly registered domain “myob-australia.com”.

Upon clicking the “view invoice” button, unsuspecting users are directed to a compromised website, which downloads malicious software. This software sets itself to run automatically as soon as Windows launches, and attempts to steal sensitive information from web browsers.

The email has been hitting “thousands” of email accounts per minute, with multiple variations featuring different company names and invoice amounts to attempt to fool antivirus software.

 

Security experts advise to “never click on the link”, and that most legitimate emails that involve invoice reminders will tell you to visit a website rather than provide a link itself. Deleting the email is also a good move.

Tips for identifying suspicious emails include hovering your mouse over any links in the email to make sure it’s sending you to a genuine location, and checking the senders email address.

 

 

MYOB has previously advised its clients that legitimate invoice emails would only come from the addresses “accountright [at] apps.myob.com” or “noreply [at] apps.myob.com”.

“We strongly recommend not clicking on links in messages that come from strange or unrecognised email addresses,” says Andrew Birch, General Manager Industry Solutions at MYOB.

“We’d also like to remind people to ensure they have good anti-virus protection installed, make sure their software is up-to-date and they have firewalls in place.”

– Related post: Paypal Working Capital Alternatives.

 

You can read more in the full article over at smartcompany

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