The internet has, for better or worse, change everything. With its many quantifiable benefits, for example, fast communication and remote access to your work, new threads have come along for the ride. We all are facing what seems an insurmountable amount of spam messages. But aside from getting incessant solicitations to sell us something, there is yet a more nefarious type of spam that can pose a much more serious danger.
We are safer today!
New modern operating systems like the latest versions of Windows and macOS have been implementing new security features to keep our privacy and data safe. It is increasingly more difficult for scammers to install malware on computers without user interaction. That is why they are now attempting to use our emotions—manipulating us into clicking a link on a cleverly written email.
Don’t fall for this
As a website developer, I have gotten more calls about one type of email scam than any other. They use the webform or email address displayed on the website in an attempt to reach the website owner. I have personally seen various versions of this same scam. But it is always the same premiss. They claim the site is infringing on copywritten photographic materials. The language used is basically the same on several of these versions, but it is genuinely unsettling when you see it the first time. It prompted me to double-check the assets that I had used on a particular site to ensure they were adequately licensed.
We always use best pratcies!
Grapho Sutidos only uses original materials provided by the clients or created in-house, or alternatively licensed stock images or video assets.
The way this scam works is simple. It provides a specially crafted link intended to download code that can later be used to encrypt your computer drive in an attempt to collect ransom to decrypt it. So the first safety rule is never to follow a link from an unsolicited email, no matter how legitimate it might look.
It is all a click scare!
These are two samples of emails making the rounds, but they can vary in the details they present.
Hi!
My name is Jessica.
Your website or a website that your company hosts is infringing on a copyright-protected images owned by myself.
Check out this document with the links to my images you used at www.techlicious.com and my earlier publications to get the evidence of my copyrights.
Download it now and check this out for yourself:
https://sites.google.com/view/[redacted]
I believe you have willfully infringed my rights under 17 U.S.C. Section 101 et seq. and could be liable for statutory damages as high as $150,000 as set forth in Section 504(c)(2) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (”DMCA”) therein.
This letter is official notification. I seek the removal of the infringing material referenced above. Please take note as a service provider, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act requires you, to remove or disable access to the infringing materials upon receipt of this notice. If you do not cease the use of the aforementioned copyrighted material a lawsuit will be commenced against you.
I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Best regards,
Jessica Martin
or
Hi there!
This is Melangelle and I am a qualified photographer and illustrator.
I was baffled, to put it nicely, when I came across my images at your website. If you use a copyrighted image without an owner’s permission, you must know that you could be sued by the owner.
It’s not legal to use stolen images and it’s so mean!
Check out this document with the links to my images you used at www.techlicious.com and my earlier publications to obtain the evidence of my legal copyrights.
Download it right now and check this out for yourself:
https://sites.google.com/view/[redacted]
If you don’t delete the images mentioned in the file above during the next several days, I’ll file a to your hosting provider letting them know that my copyrights have been severely infringed and I am trying to protect my intellectual property.
And if it doesn’t help, trust me I am going to take it to court! And I won’t give you a prior notice again.
If you get any message purportedly claiming any of this, simply delete it and never click on the link.
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