Coffee Lovers Warned of New Starbucks Phishing Scam

cypac1
Oct 25, 2024
2 min read

Happy Friday Over the past two weeks, a wave of fake emails has been hitting inboxes across America and Europe, claiming to be from Starbucks and saying that you've won a brand-new Starbucks Coffee Lovers Box. Here’s what they look like:

The Takeaway

Scammers often impersonate well-known brands because familiarity fosters trust. They're preying on your confidence in trusted names.

The emails contain malicious links designed to steal personal and financial information or install malware on your devices. Remember that reputable organizations like Starbucks will rarely, if ever, request sensitive information via email.

The cost of executing these phishing scams is minimal. Bad guys can craft an email that closely resembles an official message from Starbucks, along with a fake landing page designed to steal your credentials. Once they have access to your Starbucks account, they may also compromise any other accounts that use the same login information.

They'll send out millions of these emails, and even if only a small percentage of recipients fall victim, it’s still highly profitable. Keep an eye out as these types of scams typically have three key elements:

1) Establishing Credibility – often by impersonating a trusted brand or pretending to be someone you know, like your company’s CEO.

2) Invoking an Emotional Response – this could be the excitement of winning a prize or receiving a limited-time offer.

3) Creating Urgency – scammers use time-sensitive offers to pressure you into acting quickly without thinking.

In previous coffee-related email scams, attackers cleverly time the emails to catch you off-guard, like early in the morning when you're likely craving coffee and might not have had your first cup yet!

Stay vigilant for these tactics, and when in doubt, report suspicious emails to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at https://www.ic3.gov/. Your report might help catch the bad guys.

Stay safe out there.

-Attila

PS. If you think that this email might be helpful to a friend, family member, client or co-worker, feel free to pass it along. Thank you for your continued support of Cypac's mission.

Thank you for helping us accelerate humanity toward a safer, more secure technological future.

New Friday Funnies

What’s the opposite of coffee? Sneezy.