It has come to our attention that some clients are experiencing an increase in phishing and spoofed emails. This coincides with reports from other hosting companies indicating a surge in these types of attacks and fraudulent emails on a global scale.

Common attacks include:

• Malicious attachments - contains viruses that wreak havoc on your device.
• Email account quota or activity notifications - where they ask you to sign in to verify your account.
• SARS warnings/threats - fraudsters will try to con you into paying them money.
• Bank details verification - your bank will never ask you to supply personal information via email. If you are unsure if a particular email came from your bank or not, forward the email on to your bank’s fraud department.
• Lottery notifications and inheritance scams - if it sounds too good to be true, it is!
• and many more.

We strongly encourage clients to do the following to maximise protection:

Prevention: Install a malware/virus scanner on all devices to scan incoming mail. Make sure it is regularly updated to the latest version.

Mitigation: Remember, emails containing malicious files can only cause harm to your device if you unwittingly take an action that allows it onto your device. Fraudsters pose as trusted sources or public authorities to trick you into taking an action that will benefit them. 

Do not open any attachments (.exe, .bat, .doc, etc.) or click on any links from unknown senders or even public authorities. The more insistent the sender is on getting you to open the attachment (scare tactics) the more likely it is of a malicious nature.

If replying, make sure the "From:" email address matches the "Reply" or "To" email address.

Never give out personal details or sensitive information, or 'verify' email address passwords.

Vigilance is the key to staying safe online.

If you receive such a mail and you are unsure - it's best to leave it and delete it.

HOSTAFRICA's Defense Implementation  

To help slow these attacks on our clients, we have placed more filters on our mail servers.

SpamAssassin email scanners have been force-enabled for all clients' cPanels on which it was previously disabled.

Additional block lists (RBLs) have been enabled on our firewalls and mail server configurations.

Stay safe and Happy Hosting!

The HOSTAFRICA Team

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