Remember when you used to get an email full of spelling errors from a distant country saying that someone was dying to make you a multimillionaire if you’d only give them your  contact info and bank information?  The fraudsters have gotten more sophisticated due to the ability to scrape information off the internet.

Billboard Insider has received fraudulent emails in which someone tries to pretend they are one of Billboard Insider’s co-publishers contacting the other co-publisher.  Look at this, click this, here’s the file you asked for…

And here’s a more sophisticated scam in which someone tries to impersonate Billboard Loans (one of the company’s Billboard Insider owns).  The fraudster has scraped a Billboard Loans ad off the internet and is using the Billboard Loans name.  The email went to Ken Altena, one of Billboard Loans partners.  The scam even incorporates a QR code with a malicious link.   Here’s the attempted scam minus the malicious links.  We printed the email, cut out the QR code and screenshot the result so the links and QR code are not live.

Billboard Insider’s Take: AI will help scams become more sophisticated.  Be paranoid.  If you didn’t ask for something don’t click on it.  In case of doubt ask questions before your open links.  Use a business firewall, tough passwords and 2 part ID verification.  And buy an antivirus program and periodically scan your computer for viruses

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