Fraudulent Email – Phishing Attacks

RCMP Veterans’ Association

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Fraudulent Email – Phishing Attacks

Dear Association Members,

Recently a number of our Divisions have experienced situations where fraudsters, using the names and emails of a Division’s executive have endeavoured to request money from another member of the Division executive. This sort of activity is certainly not confined to our Association but Divisions including Okanagan, Shuswap, Quebec, and Kingston have experienced these attacks and have reported similar activity in other institutions in their general area.

Coincidentally, today, the Toronto Police Service (TPS) issued a bulletin dealing precisely with this “phishing” and in light of its currency it is being shared for your information.

The bulletin is obviously Toronto-centric and the description of what is going on is more intense than what our Divisions have experienced but it does provide some guidance of what to do with these emails.

The TPS bulletin follows.

James Forrest
Director of Communications
RCMP Veterans’ Association

Public Safety Alert, Email Extortion Scam

Friday, April 10, 2020 – 2:30 PM Primary Report Intake, Management and Entry (PRIME) 416-808-2222

The Toronto Police Service would like to make the public aware of an email phishing scam which tries to extort money out of recipients. It is reported that:

• an unknown person has sent a mass email to members of the public
• the email includes the recipient’s email password
• the email states the sender is in possession of compromising or explicit photos and/or videos of the recipient
• the email requests $1900 (or other amount) in bitcoin or the photos and video will be released to the recipient’s friends
• the majority of emails are being sent from an Outlook account to a Hotmail email address

The Toronto Police would like to advise that emails of this nature are a phishing scam in a bid to extort money from the receiver.

You can report the incident online with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) is the central agency in Canada that collects information and criminal intelligence on such matters as mass marketing fraud (i.e.: telemarketing), advance fee fraud, Internet fraud(Phishing scams) and identification theft complaints

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