Fake McAfee email scam is a dangerous form of phishing fraud that concentrates around your account at this antivirus vendor. Fraudsters bait the users with kind offers or notifications about changes in terms and other things that urgently require users’ attention. This fraud has many variations and possible effects.
McAfee scam email aims at your credentials
This email fraud is a classic example of phishing that involves messages that lead the user to a malicious page, which repeats the design of a simple login site. Sure, frauds related to email messages from strangers involve different tactics, but this one also appears. McAfee scam email mimics the regular notification from the vendor regarding account details or the users’ licenses. It may be an offer to get a free license for 1 year (or prolong your current one), a message that you should approve certain changes to McAfee policies, or prolong the license as it expires soon. At least these words already make the message untrustworthy, as real messages never contain something like this. Is there a Mcafee scam email 2023 going around in cybersecurity?
At the email bottom, or in the exact text, there is a link or a button that you can click on to get the details. Regardless of the bait, it will throw you to a phishing page – the one that copies the McAfee login page or a scam survey site. The former is more likely when this link is in a scary message, the latter – in a gifting one. Does Mcafee send emails?
The login page has only 2 states – the default one and the “wrong login/password” sign underneath the fields for login credentials. Regardless of what you type there, the information will be transferred to crooks who can manage your account after that. Alternatively, from the phishing page that aims at your credentials, the site may contain a download button. It can download and install a thing you’d never get willingly. Adware or rogue apps are the most often cases in this case.
Pseudo-giveaway that promises you a gift will likely ask you for your personal information. Shady persons on the Darknet are willing to pay a lot for a database of users’ information. The pack of name/surname/physical address/email address/system information et cetera gives a lot of advantages for other scams.
Rarely, the message may contain the attached file, and the text offers you to open it instead of following the link. In this file, you’re supposed to see details about the changes in the terms or other stuff they used as a disguise for a letter. In fact, this attachment (often a .docx or .xlsx document) contains a virus.
How dangerous is the McAfee scam email 2023?
Main thing you’re risking when following the instructions in a scam fake email addressis your account credentials and your personal information. The latter may not look so scary to you, as you share a lot of information with different services online. However, they usually keep them in secret, as GDPR rules force them to. Meanwhile, crooks who obtain your personal information through phishing never pay attention to rules or laws. As I mentioned, this information will likely be packed into a database and sold on the Darknet. And the next owners of this data will hardly be benevolent.
Credentials from your account, on the other hand, fit two roles simultaneously. Having your McAfee account means being able to steal your license key, if the one is present. Afterward, your key will likely activate a cracked copy of this software. Alternatively, it will be sold for a penny somewhere on the Internet – at a way lower price than you paid for it. If your license supposes its usage on several computers, be ready to meet the squatters. Another role for the stolen credentials is adding them to a database of leaked passwords and logins. Such information packs are used in brute force attacks, and the more passwords are here, the bigger is the chance of success.
Malware injection through the attachment is the problem of a different grade. While identity theft or account hacking is not an instant action, malware starts actions immediately after the launch. Fake email address phishing, like McAfee email scams, has become the bread and butter for malware distributors over the last year. It is dangerous for both single users and corporations, as the human factor is exploitable. In such a form, you can get any malware – but the most common things are stealers, spyware and ransomware. Sometimes, they arrive individually, resulting in compromised accounts and ciphered data. Not the very pleasant consequences, ain’t they?
How to protect yourself from McAfee email scams? How to Stop Mcafee Spam Emails?
The positive about most email scams is that they can easily be mitigated by a simple attentiveness. Once receives a suspicious email, the user should pay attention to a couple of things in its body and header. Even the most sophisticated fakes will contain elements that cannot be the same as in the original email. Less complicated things usually have various other signs that will help you to uncover the fraud. So, Mcafee scam emails, how to stop?
Typos and grammatical errors
Despite the availability of online spell checkers, crooks still refuse to use them, making a lot of mistakes in their letters. Poor English, missed punctuation marks, bad design – all this cannot be met in an official email. Their presence points to the fake origin of such a letter.
Link address
Genuine messages may contain links to their website – for instructions, for example. However, they always belong to the original sender’s domain (mcafee.com for the genuine McAfee email message case). If you see the link to a dubious page, like 193d9haodcnaqda127.weebly.com, or a short link, that is the reason to avoid clicking it. Official mailing never contains links to external sites and never applies using short links.
Sender’s email address
There are official email addresses companies use for mailing or conversations. They are often listed on their website. Receiving a letter that pretends to be sent by McAfee support, but the sender is [email protected] does not look trustworthy. In complicated situations, crooks may try to use email addresses that look related to the sender. That’s why it is better to review the contacts on the website. For McAfee, those are the following:
Strange offers and unusual notifications
Giveaways, quizzes, or notifications about account blocking are not typical for any company. They can mail you when there are certain problems with your account to be solved, but you would likely be aware of them. On the other hand, offering to share personal information in exchange for a prolonged license is never a real case. In conjunction with the symptoms we mentioned above, it will point to the fact that this message is fake.
Is it possible to avoid email spam in the future?
The appearance of email spam in your inbox does not mean any bad things happened. Crooks often purchase databases with random email addresses, flooding them to bait someone into fraud. If you neither respond nor follow the link, they will delete you from their list sooner or later. However, any activity (i.e., replies or clicks on the link) shows them that your account is active and was baited into a scam. Spam researchers state that any response to a fraudulent email causes a rapid increase in other fraudulent emails.
Several tips can help you get less spam and easily distinguish between genuine and fake ones. First, use a separate email for registrations on sites and events you are not confident about. Some sites are not so worried about their image and happily sell the databases with their client information to third parties. The latter is not always malicious, but exposure is unpleasant for your “main” email address. This draft email will act as a shield that will take all suspicious emails on its part. Meanwhile, you will be sure about emails in your personal or work inbox.
Another tip is related to reporting the suspicious emails. Yes, most mailing services use special anti-spam engines that control most spam flow. However, perfection has no limits – and sometimes you may see Mcafee phishing emails in your inbox. Reporting such a tricky mail is easy: all you have to do is click the button with three dots on that message and press “Report Spam”.
