Share your phishing stories

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sudo

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Ultimate Geek
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#324147 5-Mar-2026 21:51

I'm noticing phishing messages are starting to get inventive/targetted.

Here's one that arrived as a txt today, I haven't seen before (from an +91 Indian phone number) ...

Airpoints Dollars

This is to notify you that 10,079 Rewards Points will expire at 12:00 AM on 5 March 2026 unless redeemed prior to this date.

Discover a wide selection of rewards, including Apple, Gift card and more, available for redemption before your points expire.

[Removed]

It almost got me. Like when I got a toll notification, about a week after passing through the Puhoi tunnel toll road.

Feel free to share any phishing stories you have come across.

elpenguino

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#3467157 5-Mar-2026 21:58

is that a functioning link?

Whats the guidance on sharing those ?

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
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#3467160 5-Mar-2026 22:12

Removed the phishing link. Why spread that crap?

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sudo

409 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#3467169 6-Mar-2026 06:06

freitasm:

Removed the phishing link. Why spread that crap?

Better than people see that type of phishing scam for the first time, on their phone, without any prior knowledge ?

I apologise, I didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to believe an email thread clearly discussing phishing (on a technical forum), would assume this is a legit link.

(and the site was also unresolvable)

freitasm

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#3467180 6-Mar-2026 08:08

Not 100% of site visitors are tech inclined. And we don't need to put links that AI bots might end up following and suggesting on their wrong answers...

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johno1234

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#3467182 6-Mar-2026 08:17

Client of mine routinely sends out phishing emails that link to their cybersecurity education page. I was fooled by one pretending to be Air NZ telling me about a flight credit. Damn it!

k1w1k1d

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#3467186 6-Mar-2026 08:52

The IT department at my old workplace regularly sends out phishing emails to all staff members to test them. The clickable links fed back to IT, and you would get a call from them if you clicked on a link.

Lenovo

Shop now for Lenovo laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

MikeAqua

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#3467190 6-Mar-2026 09:08

A nice GT (released) and six tuna on my most recent trip to Savusavu.

Mike

xpd

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#3467191 6-Mar-2026 09:10

Yeah we have a awareness training system that sends very legit looking emails, and gives users who click links, a website that has a video telling them whats happened and the risks.

Then does it again at a random time to see if they've learnt. I get the reports to know who to go give a kick ;)

Being a charity, we get a LOT of phishing attempts, some of them are so funny, such as "Proposal to purchase Coastguard" or "30% Payrise for all Coastguard staff" :D

XPD / Gavin

LinkTree

sudo

409 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#3467203 6-Mar-2026 10:02

freitasm:

Not 100% of site visitors are tech inclined. And we don't need to put links that AI bots might end up following and suggesting on their wrong answers...

As much as I have seen the usefulness of code assistant bots, I've seen some absolute garbage from general AI bots.

I believe they use the term "hallucination"

MikeAqua

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#3467210 6-Mar-2026 10:40

xpd:

Yeah we have a awareness training system that sends very legit looking emails, and gives users who click links, a website that has a video telling them whats happened and the risks.

Then does it again at a random time to see if they've learnt. I get the reports to know who to go give a kick ;)

We had one of those where I worked. Always the same people who were caught by the gotcha-emails. Then there was the over-vigilance issue. Repeated gotcha-tests caused people to "tackle on suspicion" ...

The company engaged Law of The Jungle to deliver mandatory (and dull and tedious) compliance training - HR, inclusion, commerce, fair trading HSE etc. Their emails looked clunky and dated. On that basis, a lot of people reported them as phishy and/or listed their domain as junk. Caused quite a few headaches.

Mike

alasta

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#3467211 6-Mar-2026 10:45

MikeAqua:

xpd:

Yeah we have a awareness training system that sends very legit looking emails, and gives users who click links, a website that has a video telling them whats happened and the risks.

Then does it again at a random time to see if they've learnt. I get the reports to know who to go give a kick ;)

We had one of those where I worked. Always the same people who were caught by the gotcha-emails. Then there was the over-vigilance issue. Repeated gotcha-tests caused people to "tackle on suspicion" ...

The company engaged Law of The Jungle to deliver mandatory (and dull and tedious) compliance training - HR, inclusion, commerce, fair trading HSE etc. Their emails looked clunky and dated. On that basis, a lot of people reported them as phishy and/or listed their domain as junk. Caused quite a few headaches.

The same thing happens at my workplace. I think the 'awareness training' is juvenile and patronising, but what makes it worse is that our systems regularly send out spammy looking emails that are actually legitimate. So, the IT department are putting all this work into educating people, then undermining that effort by blurring the lines between dangerous and legitimate emails.