I appreciate the responses to my comment. Thank you. I’m not particularly techie so perhaps that’s why I feel the way I do!! (Though I’m ok with my computer!!) Personally, I would still prefer snail mail. (Why is everyone in such a hurry to get through life I ask myself?)
My niece, whom I wrote about, didn’t do anything about either the texts or email for a little while, so receiving texts/emails isn’t necessarily any quicker…when one believes they are scams, as she did initially. (I might add that she is a senior too (71) so is a most cautious person, as am I. At 81 perhaps that says it all about me?)
I also reiterate that I do not have a mobile phone. (Nor do I want one.) As well, I do not have any social media accounts either. Both of these factors seem to stun many people!! (No mobile phone? No social media account?) However, I realise that that is my own choice and that I am definitely the ‘odd man out’. Letters sent by snail mail, seems to be a dirty word in this day and age. Sorry I’m old school. Once again, thank you for your responses. I apologise if anyone is annoyed by my comments, but there you are.
Scams are a scourge and my heart goes out to all the folk who have lost money and in many cases their identities, because of them. Take care.
You certainly haven’t annoyed me @Norma!
Being a mature adult has its rewards and one is of not being overly influenced by peer pressure. I agree with you and I am sad if anyone falls for scams, a cowardly way to entrap people. I’m glad to see Choice’s most recent campaign is about ‘Scams’. Anything that can be done to alert and protect would be very welcomed by many.
From my experience: I changed to online payment notices after a few got ‘lost in the mail’ and I was alerted that my insurance had expired!
There’s also a problem with mailboxes vandalism, depending on where you live I suppose.
Regarding contacting banks, it’s not always easy, I usually just walk down my local branch if there’s any problems but with my last credit card fraud it was after hours when I noticed it and I opted to call the bank on their ‘report a fraud’ number. I was asked why I called and told there’d be a 15min wait, I agreed to be put on hold. One hour later an assistant took my call and apologised profusely for the wait. But I was glad to have had it sorted no matter how long the wait.
I echo your sentiments: a heart felt ‘Take Care’ to all!
Thank you Gaby. I feel better about my thoughts already!! Lol. I don’t believe it will get any better in relation to scams. There are always people who will do as much damage as they can. Not so much because they are good at it (which they are.) but because greed is their only God it would seem. Get rich quick is their mantra. I can mentally see their pouter pigeon strut as they claim another scalp. Anyway, I hope to be able to stay clear of these scammers and I shall continue to be as careful as I can. I can do no more than that.
I live in a retirement village (as does my niece) so I feel safer than most folk who live ‘outside’ so to speak. My snail mail is safe in this environment so I am fortunate indeed. However, I do receive most bills via email and have no objection to that at all, and in fact I pay them online too!! I was only referring to organisations which require you to update your details and similar. Obviously I can see that I am behind the times in that regard. Enough said I guess. Thanks for ‘listening’. Enjoy life.
I share a similar view that things won’t get better. Recent developments in communication technologies has been great for consumers on one hand, but has come with a major downside, the ability for criminals (anywhere in the world) to sting consumers with their criminal activities. Previous technologies made it harder or far costlier for criminals to use which was a major disincentive (their costs could easily have exceeded their returns).
Communication technologies were also set up based on ease (inc user cost) and freedom of communication and failed to identify the potential exploitation of the same technologies by criminals. This applies not only to Australia, but every country which has moved forward with their communication technologies.
It is now a game of catch up trying to close doors the criminals open. But, there are only so many doors that can be closed before ease and freedom of communication is significantly impacted.
That’s the real issue. The cost of using the postal system to attack everyone involved in the Optus hack, for example, would be large, potentially larger than any illicit gains. The cost of doing the same thing via email is almost negligible. The cost of doing it via SMS is modest. The cost of doing it via the postal system is also increasing.
From a practical point of view, the difficulty of doing it via SMS is very low. You can just iterate over all numbers 0400 000 000 to 0499 999 999. Sure, some of them will fail.
You can’t exactly do that with email addresses (although some approximately try). However vast lists of valid email addresses can be purchased for not many dollars.
SMS is a largely fail technology from the point of view of authenticity. You really don’t know who sent the SMS and nor is there an easy way to fix that (and no one seems interested in trying anyway).
Email on the other hand is in practice largely fail but can already be done securely, but no one seems to be interested in doing so!
So, I’m with @Norma. Paper is in practice more likely to be legitimate.
Didn’t click on the link, but the URL appears to push one to a website to download the 'Security Software" which will most likely be malware or ransonware.
Key giveaways are…never used this email account for Zoom and the senders email addresses.
… and the pretty random From and ReplyTo domains,
the invention of an entity that is not Zoom (Zoom Info),
the faulty grammar and expression
plus less key giveaways …
… the fact that T’bird thinks the message is “Junk”, and
the lack of personal addressing (“Greetings Customer”), and
for some people the fact that they don’t use Zoom at all.
And if you received that on a desktop or laptop, you probably aren’t going to be able to install some “app” anyway.
Yep.
I have taken to using one email address per entity that I deal with. (NB: Due to rewriting rules on delivery, that does not mean that I have to have 500 mailboxes or 500 actual email addresses.) While having multiple email addresses helps with filing anyway, it makes it much harder for scammers to hit a valid combination of email address and fake entity.
So if they hack Optus and start using the email address for me that Optus holds but it is purportedly “Zoom Info” contacting me on that email address then it is a) obviously a scam, and b) obvious where the leak came from.
Norma, my son recently received a snail mail letter from a bank that looked in every single way genuine. It did refer to receiving confirmation of something from the secondary person on the account. Given that their is no such person, he contacted the bank who confirmed that they did not send the letter.
It seems that nothing is foolproof.
Of course it is!
First the message without the sender details.
One clue the non personalised addressee or any other key details. Another no previous email on the subject and the imperative to act with in the next 2 days. The lack of advice to contact Telstra directly, in store or through the Telstra App, or even logging into ones account as one usually does others. The included links should never be used, although many legitimate businesses still include links for the convenience of their customers.
There are numerous other obvious clues as to why the email is a scam/fake. I’m conflicted in highlighting all the errors, not wanting to show the would be scammers how to prepare a more believable message.
The header with the exposed sender. It’s not apparent to me whether the genuine Australian organisation Telstra owns the domain “….@telstra.com”?My email usually comes from “….@Telstra.com.au”
A further frustration here is the message has evaded the Telstra mail service scam detection tools, suggesting Telstra was happy with the apparent originating address?
I believe telstra.com is a legitimate domain for Telstra. I get a crazy mix of things in telstra.com and things in telstra.com.au (all legitimate) - yes, this is not helpful, Telstra.
That is odd but without the full email headers, or even also the SMTP log, it is difficult to know whether the message should have been stopped. (For sure, if I were Telstra, I would treat it as a priority to prevent forgeries from reaching my customers.)
Apple has released a host of security updates across many devices, including for a zero-day bug which is being actively exploited in iOS.
Apple said:
“A malicious application may be able to elevate privileges. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited against versions of iOS before iOS 17.2.”
Devices affected are those that run:
iPhone XS and later
iPad Pro 13-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 7th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later
macOS Sequoia
Apple Watch Series 6 and later
All models of Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K
If you use any of these then you should install updates as soon as you can. To check if you’re using the latest software version, go to Settings (or System Settings) > General > Software Update. It’s also worth turning on Automatic Updates if you haven’t already, which you can do on the same screen.
Technical details about the zero-day
The zero-day vulnerability patched in this update is tracked as CVE-2025-24085. It is described as a use after free (UAF) issue in Apple’s Core Media framework that would allow an attacker to elevate privileges.
The Core Media framework handles multimedia applications like photos, videos, and real-time communication applications. UAF is a type of vulnerability that is the result of the incorrect use of dynamic memory during a program’s operation. If, after freeing a memory location, a program does not clear the pointer to that memory, an attacker can use the error to manipulate the program. Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code. In this case, successful exploitation could provide a malicious app with privileges on the affected device that it shouldn’t have.
Appreciated, “Auto updates” is always enabled on our devices. Although it can be several days before they decide there is an update and trigger an overnight install. To suggest Apple may have a strategy to vary the triggering across all its users to avoid every user trying to update at the same hour on the same day/night. The latest update is around 1.3GB on IOS for mobile and handheld devices.
I’m travelling - and limited to what the IOS Mail App displays as the sender’s email address, behind the Sender’s name first evident in the email. Usually for spam emails the IOS MAIL App when the senders name is prodded or clicked on will reveal sender’s addresses as anything other than what one expects. Most often Gmail, or for the more invested would be hackers clever deceptions that look like the registered domain names of the senders being impersonated.
My highlight in the following says it all! Encouraged by the tech enablers and accepted by our Governments - it’s apparently the consumers failings when caught out.
It makes sense to register other related domains in order to prevent cybersquatting and other dubious behaviour. However you don’t have to use any of the other domains.
Agree, and many business redirect/forward domains to one of the domains they hold/use for business purposes. Use of multiple domains can be a legacy issue such as a business changing from com.au to .com, but, many existing addresses are com.au.
Assumption it is a scam. Neither the clinic nor a phone number provided. Both being the norm, and in this instance the SMS not following similar messages usually kept together by sender.
Rule 1 - do not click on the link,
Rule 2 - scammers can be smart,
Rule 3 - don’t ignore rule no 1.
It’s getting more difficult, given some of the legitimate messaging can also omit clarifying source details one can verify independently. I always phone the practice unless it is an expected message and content.
Hotdoc.com is a genuine online booking etc service used by many medical practices, including the doctor I see. I suspect it probably isn’t a scam, assuming the link goes to where it appears to go.
Being brave and somewhat protected, using the trusty PC it resolves to a recalls notice link asking for basic details prior to going on. It is a hotdoc.com.au domain site.
My concern about @mark_m’s sample message is that there’s no “clinic name” given in the text, and in @philt’s test of the link there’s no clinic name and no contact phone number – both should be present on that identity-verification page.
According to the HotDoc link above, this is what it should look like when you go to the link given (with the name of a medical business you have some association with, rather than “General Medical Centre”):
