'Tis the season.... to fall victim to scams

Friendly reminder that during the holiday period, an increase in scams of all kinds takes place.

I just received this very legitimate looking email from the Canadian Revenue Agency.

Everything looks good except the fact that they do not love me (or any of you) enough to send you a document.

Testing out the document, only 5 of 59 anti-viruses actually detect this document as malicious (based on file signatures).

So over the holiday season, please do not believe emails asking you to do anything, or SMS messages asking you to visit a site, or a phone call, or even traditional mail (yes... I got a real envelope with a real stamp that was a full blown scam).

Essentially, anyone who loves you shouldn't be sending you anything you click on unless you talked before hand and are expecting the link or file.

Trust no one.

When in doubt, contact the sender directly using the phone number you already know or the number from their actual website.

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Eric Parent is a senior security expert, specialized in coaching senior executives.  He teaches CyberSecurity at l'Ecole Polytechnique and HEC Universities in Montreal, and is CEO of Logicnet/EVA-Technologies, one of Canada's oldest privately owned security companies.

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Twitter @ericparent

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www.eva-technologies.com