[Technology] One for the IT Security Geeks

nwgull said:

One to for the bearded, star wars t-shirt wearing brigade of NSC from someone with mediocre IT understanding:

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RandyWanger said:

I do have a beard, but I have never watched star wars

Has this employee updated their linkedin to say they work for you? It can be as easy as that and most companies will use first.lastname@ format. Pretty easy to guess. Bots trawling the internet can easily pick this info up.

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nwgull said:

One to for the bearded, star wars t-shirt wearing brigade of NSC from someone with mediocre IT understanding:

Had a call from a new employee yesterday saying he was just responding to my email. I hadn't sent him an email, but he'd received a phishing email from an account with my name on it but a different domain name, which is why he thought a call was appropriate rather than responding to the email. This in itself didn't concern me as we often get these types of emails to addresses that have been harvested over the years and the staff are fairly savvy when it comes to responding to odd looking addresses or clicking on links. What does however concern me is that this guy is new to the company and his email account didn't even exist until just over a week ago, so his address has been harvested in a matter of days! Does this indicate a security breach somewhere, or is this possible?

Thanks in advance for all help.

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nwgull said:

One to for the bearded, star wars t-shirt wearing brigade of NSC from someone with mediocre IT understanding:

Had a call from a new employee yesterday saying he was just responding to my email. I hadn't sent him an email, but he'd received a phishing email from an account with my name on it but a different domain name, which is why he thought a call was appropriate rather than responding to the email. This in itself didn't concern me as we often get these types of emails to addresses that have been harvested over the years and the staff are fairly savvy when it comes to responding to odd looking addresses or clicking on links. What does however concern me is that this guy is new to the company and his email account didn't even exist until just over a week ago, so his address has been harvested in a matter of days! Does this indicate a security breach somewhere, or is this possible?

Thanks in advance for all help.

Click to expand...

RandyWanger said:

I do have a beard, but I have never watched star wars

Has this employee updated their linkedin to say they work for you? It can be as easy as that and most companies will use first.lastname@ format. Pretty easy to guess. Bots trawling the internet can easily pick this info up.

Click to expand...

nwgull said:

One to for the bearded, star wars t-shirt wearing brigade of NSC from someone with mediocre IT understanding:

Had a call from a new employee yesterday saying he was just responding to my email. I hadn't sent him an email, but he'd received a phishing email from an account with my name on it but a different domain name, which is why he thought a call was appropriate rather than responding to the email. This in itself didn't concern me as we often get these types of emails to addresses that have been harvested over the years and the staff are fairly savvy when it comes to responding to odd looking addresses or clicking on links. What does however concern me is that this guy is new to the company and his email account didn't even exist until just over a week ago, so his address has been harvested in a matter of days! Does this indicate a security breach somewhere, or is this possible?

Thanks in advance for all help.

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ConfusedGloryHunter said:

How is John Smith's first week going anyway?

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usernamed said:

While it’s possible that something is harvesting email addresses from within the organisation, it’s far more likely that your new lad has just entered his new business email address onto LinkedIn (now owned by Facebook) without his privacy controls being well set up, and Facebook have immediately sold it on to absolutely everyone for absolutely any purpose.

Edit: I see I’m far from the first to suggest LinkedIn!

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Springal said:

Linkedin has been and is still owned by Microsoft since 2016

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maltaseagull said:

He should change his password from Password 1234 to Password 4321 just to be safe

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Herr Tubthumper said:

Don’t forget the balding head and skinny pony-tail.

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nwgull said:

One to for the bearded, star wars t-shirt wearing brigade of NSC from someone with mediocre IT understanding:

Had a call from a new employee yesterday saying he was just responding to my email. I hadn't sent him an email, but he'd received a phishing email from an account with my name on it but a different domain name, which is why he thought a call was appropriate rather than responding to the email. This in itself didn't concern me as we often get these types of emails to addresses that have been harvested over the years and the staff are fairly savvy when it comes to responding to odd looking addresses or clicking on links. What does however concern me is that this guy is new to the company and his email account didn't even exist until just over a week ago, so his address has been harvested in a matter of days! Does this indicate a security breach somewhere, or is this possible?

Thanks in advance for all help.

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Westdene Seagull said:

If he's been sent an email from what purports to be you then it's more to do with your email address being out in the 'wild' than his. It shows the importance of training people in recognising phishing. No security breach just as long as he didn't respond ( which by the sounds of it he didn't ) and just deleted the email. Always worth previewing an email before opening properly so that the scammer don't know it's been opened.

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nwgull said:

If I was after a record producer or someone to manage my band, then that's who I'll be after. For IT, I'd be suspicious of the expertise of someone without a beard and cavalier attitude to personal hygiene.

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maltaseagull said:

He should change his password from Password 1234 to Password 4321 just to be safe

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