How would I hack YOU during the holidays? By messaging you about the packages, deals and giveaways you care about! Share these scam types with your fam so they know exactly which emails, texts, calls, and posts to be wary of this December. Stay politely paranoid, folks ☃️🤖🤘

Many people only think of EMAIL when they think of phishing, but phishing is common across every tool! For example: - Phishing texts about "delivery delays" - Social media posts with scam sweepstakes - Calls about "fraud charges on your credit card" - Voicemails from the "FBI"

Because so many people were trained to spot only phishing emails, there is a lack of education about just how tricky scam calls, texts, social media posts/ads, and voicemails can be. They use urgency around receiving gifts on time and our fear of fraud/monetary loss to trick!

Cyber criminals think of their work like a business -- you know how business ramps up during the holiday buying season? So do hacking attempts. Criminals don't need to do research to determine you have a package arriving soon (& you want to avoid a delay in time for holidays).

You may read this as a tech savvy person and think "I would never fall for an obvious scam like that!" and I hope your right. But, some scams are less clear. Ie. An email from you insurance provider requiring info before winter enrollment period ends (they mimic real deadlines and typical messages).

How to stay safe from scams this holiday season? - Be politely paranoid - Use another method of communication to verify people/orgs are who they say they are (call, email, text, chat, etc) before taking sensitive actions - Use long, unique, and random passwords stored in a password manager (or passkeys) - Turn on MFA for every account

Family has been asking me about several Facebook posts/ads that advertise too good to be true clearance deal/sales sites with domains just registered this year, with whois info and security certs different from the actual companies' sites

I'm so glad you're helping people through that to help them avoid scams!

@EricaZelic Apple seems to have some innovative ideas! This can’t be hard to spoof…

lol yeah the timing of that email made me nervous at first

my favorite time of the year to write phishing emails (for fun)

😂