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CYBERSECURITY

Beware: Tax Season Phishing Campaign

The yearly tax season phishing campaign is on schedule for hackers to leverage the urgency of the tax filing
deadline to ramp up their phishing efforts to deliver malware. Recipients are more likely to download
attachments or click on links when there is a sense of urgency.
The latest variation of the phishing campaign may include messages with malicious documents that assert to
contain tax-related content but eventually deliver remote access Trojans that enable hackers to take control of
victims’ devices.

In this campaign, the recipients of a phishing message are encouraged to open what's depicted as a tax-themed
Word document, it displays a blurred background as well as “enable editing” and “enable content” prompts.
Recipients should be aware of this social engineering technique and resist acting on the prompts that would
result in malicious content being downloaded and run on the victim’s machine.
Remember, data protection is everyone’s responsibility. Data integrity is essential, and lack thereof could result
in legal complications as well as financial and reputational loss.

Report suspected scams and questionable emails to TOC@spok.com or contact Spok Technology
Operations Center (TOC) 24/7 972-801-0000