DELRAY BEACH, Fla.- Think before you click. That's good advice about what is popping up in e -mail boxes: a computer phishing scam that can steal your personal information in just a matter of seconds.
An email, which appears to be from the company DocuSign, is now circulating.
“It seemed very legitimate,” said Julie Mullen, the co-founder of The Buzz Agency, a PR firm in Delray Beach. “I opened it up.”
But when Julie quickly realized it was fake, it was too late.
“I did what it asked me to do, which was to provide my Gmail address,” explained Julie. “From then on that's when everything started to fall apart.”
She was locked out of her email, including on both her iPhone and iPad. Clients, even people she hasn't spoken to in years, started contacting her.
“Even got a call from my ex-husband asking if I had sent him something but none of this was real,” said Julie. “I couldn't believe this was happening,”
She's the victim of the latest phishing scam, a scam to lure users into clicking on a deceiving link - in this case to give an electronic signature- only to give scammers access to personal information like her passwords.
“They've taken her email account and changed her password because they want to stay in control of it as long as possible to do as much damage as possible,” said Brett Centerbar, the co-founder of Nerd Alert, a home tech support business.
Luckily, Julie changed her password soon after clicking on the deceiving link but she was still locked out of her email for hours.
“It looks like a legitimate document,” said Julie. “Even the most tech savvy can be fooled.”
Tech experts suggest protecting yourself by using a two-step verification process like your phone and email, always keep your anti-virus software up-to-date and if you’re a Gmail user, use Google’s sign-in and security feature. That’s where you can check the latest locations your email was used.
