Security Alert: PayPal scam emails on the rise April 2023
Have you recently received legitimate-looking emails from PayPal for products or services? It’s very likely that these were PayPal scam emails and should be treated with caution.
Today our Melbourne based IT support team have observed an increase in PayPal invoice scams via email posing as legitimate PayPal invoices. We’ve received almost a dozen emails from scammers asking us to pay for invoices that we have not requested via PayPal.
Let’s look at how we can identify these phishing emails and what to do about them. As we host our own VPS we can use WHM to confirm that these emails are in fact scams.
We can clearly see here that the following are not part of our network.
Sender Host:
mail-dbaeur03on2125.outbound.protection.outlook.com
Sender IP:
40.107.104.125
Email Security Tip: Don’t be fooled by phishing emails. It’s very easy to change the ‘From’ address on an email message & pose like someone you are not.
We can see the rise in paypal.com related emails flowing from buzzsprout.site in WHM > Email > Mail Delivery Reports. In the screenshot above we can see 3 emails with a spam score of -4 on Apr 13, 2023, 8:37:08 AM and another 3 scam emails with a spam score of -2 just a few minutes later.
Fake invoice for $399 Norton Antivirus from PayPal
The scam emails received on our server are posing as invoices for Norton Antivirus software subscriptions. In this instance the scammers are trying to get end users to make payment via PayPal. They have also added a note from trying to conduct phishing scams by asking people to call them on local landline phone numbers.
What should you do with PayPal Scams?
Never click ‘View and Pay Invoice‘ form PayPal email scams and never call back scammers. Scammers will try to obtain your information which is referred to as phishing. They can then use this information as part of identity theft. This could lead to them falsifying documents and setting up legitimate accounts in your name.
You should always report scam invoices that you do not recognize to PayPal or to your local security authorities. The easiest way to report is by clicking the link ‘Report this invoice’, alternatively you can email [email protected].
PayPal Security Tip: For more safety information please visit https://www.paypal.com/us/security/report-suspicious-messages
https://www.paypal.com/us/security/learn-about-fake-messages
