I clicked a sketchy link in a work email last Tuesday and lost 3 hours of data

I was at my desk processing tickets when an email that looked exactly like our IT alert popped up, and I clicked without checking the sender. The system locked up and I had to restore from a backup from that morning; has anyone else dealt with phishing that sneaky?

4 comments

4 Comments

hugow301mo ago

Was the email addressed to you by name or was it something generic like "valued employee"? That usually tells you right away if it's phishy or not.

lewis.drew1mo ago

Yeah I actually read something about this the other day. Apparently there's a whole underground market for these "personalized" data lists where they match your name to your work email from leaked databases or social media scraping. So yeah it's way more common than people think for scammers to grease up the greeting line to get you to let your guard down.

laurabennett1mo ago

Wait, you mean they actually addressed it to you BY NAME? That's wild, I figured those were always just generic spam blasts!

michaela161mo ago

Wait, are you serious? You're telling me someone actually put your full name in a spam email? That's wild, I always thought those emails were just blasted out to thousands of people with generic greetings like "dear customer" or "hello there." I mean, I've seen my share of scam emails, but getting one that specifically says your name feels like a whole different level of sneaky. It makes me wonder if they got your name from some data breach or a leaked mailing list or something. That would creep me out, honestly, because then you know they've done their homework on you.