Tax deadline scams coming in HOT 🔥

Happy Friday

April 15th is coming up quick, and the bad guys are looking for a way to trick as many people as possible before next week Tuesday. They’re targeting small businesses and freelancers with fake QuickBooks ads on Google. These ads lead to convincing-looking websites that steal your login info—even if you use two-factor authentication.

Here's how it works:

1) A Fake Ad Appears on GoogleThe scammer buys a Google ad that looks like it links to the official QuickBooks site. It shows up when someone searches for “QuickBooks login” or similar terms.

2) You Click the AdThinking it’s legit, you click the ad. The link takes you to a fake QuickBooks website that looks nearly identical to the real one—even the login page looks spot on.

3) You Enter Your Login InfoYou type in your QuickBooks username and password on the fake site.

4) They Forward You to the Real Site (Maybe)Sometimes, the scammer’s site redirects you to the real QuickBooks site afterward—so you don’t even realize something was off.

5) They Steal Your Login + CodeIf you use 2FA, the fake site asks for that too. The scammer steals the code as you're typing it, then logs into your real QuickBooks account in real time.

6) They Get In and Take What They CanOnce inside, they can steal financial data, change account settings, or even attempt to reroute payments or invoices.

🔐 The Takeaway

Here’s what you need to keep in mind:

Don’t click on QuickBooks links from Google ads—go directly to quickbooks.intuit.com.
Double-check web addresses. If something looks even a little off, don’t enter your login. These look-alike sites are extremely convincing.
Make sure you're using a website content filter that can catch these phishing sites—like what we include with our cybersecurity services 🙂.

Stay safe out there

- Attila

PS: If you want to hear more about scams and other IT security topics—all for free—check out our Cyber Secured Podcast series on:

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or any other place you listen to podcasts (we're on all of them)

🎉 New - The Positivity Box

Tired of hearing about negative, fearful, and disturbing cybersecurity news?Me too. You might be surprised to learn that good things happen in IT security. Let's celebrate them!

Over the weekend, the dark web leak site for the Everest ransomware gang was hacked and defaced by an unknown actor. The Everest group is known for double extortion attacks—stealing sensitive data and threatening to leak it unless a ransom is paid.

The message on their site?