PayPal has been one of the most attractive platforms for the hackers and spammers. During a recent year, PayPal users have been played around them.
But, PayPal’s own security has not been a problem rather cyber criminals has been launching phishing attack on the PayPal’s users. Mind you PayPal has one of the best security layouts among all the online platforms.
PayPal servers are never breached by the hackers but most targeted are the type of emails they send out to their users. In the recent attack (detected by Comodo Antispam Lab), hackers have been using the email template used by PayPal for identifying for any suspicious activity of user’s accounts
In this phishing scam, the cyber criminals report users of a suspicious activity on their account and ask for a quick change in the overall profile, according to Comodo.
Screenshot of the email sent by scammers / Image Source: Comodo
They also provide an attachment with the email for updating the profile which takes them to a PayPal profile looking page which in reality is just a trap to steal all the user’s data.
The data scammers are trying to steal in this scam includes first and last names, email address, date of birth, PayPal Password and home phone number.
Screenshot of the form scammers asks users to fill / Image Source: Comodo
Here all the PayPal and other users must remember that they should never click to the links or attachments on such emails even if it’s from the official site. Instead, log in to your account by opening “paypal.com” in another tab. Most, importantly, always verify the SSL certificate (The green color indicator at the start of the site’s URL is the best indicator of the site being legit).
You can stay safe from such phishing attempts by simply typing the URL into the browser’s address bar and not clicking on link present in the emails.
It is safe and advisable to login your PayPal account by entering the web address into your browser’s address bar or via an official PayPal app. The PayPal website has a verified green signature as shown in the screenshot below:
