ISG Blog

This is just a friendly reminder to be wary of unexpected emails received, particularly from unknown users.

There continues to be a number of emails that are arriving in users Inboxes that are scams, or attempts at phishing information.

A recent one received within our organisation appeared to be an invoice with a pdf attachment.  Fortunately the user was suspicious of this because they were not aware of an impending bill and did not recognise the user.  When looking even more closely, the pdf attachment was not an attachment at all, but simply a link as per the picture attached below

The easiest way to check on such things is to allow your cursor to hover over the link, or the "attachment". The link will automatically appear either over the "link/attachment" or at the bottom of the window as per this picture

Thank you to all who are diligent and watchful as they continue to use technology to fulfill the mission of caring for people, transforming lives and reforming society through God's Holy Spirit's power.

There has been a large spike in 2018 of reports about email scams and The Salvation Army was also targeted with a number of our users receiving a fake sextortion email in December.  The email claimed to have hacked into their device and recorded intimate recordings of people using porn websites.  The email also threatened to release video to the devices personal contacts unless the victim paid a sum of money.

In some versions of this scam, the subject line also included the victim's password for their online accounts.

If you wish to see further details on this scam, you can follow this link: https://www.netsafe.org.nz/faketortian-email-scam/ 

Again, iSG wish to notify our users that should you ever receive emails that don't appear to be "quite right", then let iSG know as soon as possible.  We are able to check this and confirm whether it is a genuine email or not.  If you can log a ticket and attach a copy of the email in the ticket, that is very helpful to us, as we can then check all the details such as links provided and relevant information given (phone numbers etc).  DO NOT click on any links shown, but if you have done so, then contact iSG immediately and notify us of this.

Our spam filters stop many thousands of spam emails but unfortunately some do get through so its important we are all aware of these scams and are careful with how we deal with them.

It is vital that we keep all TSA data secure, and this goes for personal data on personal devices at home as well.  Scammers are getting smarter and slicker and its very important we remain aware of these scams.

Thank you for your assistance in keeping us all safe.

Right now some scammers are using numbers that start with +4422 to call New Zealand mobile numbers. Vodafone are working through ways to effectively and appropriately block these nuisance calls, and in the meantime, are advising customers to ignore or terminate any calls from these numbers.

We do not think that the nature of these calls are malicious; they seem more like telemarketing style calls and are just really a nuisance. We can confirm there is no known breach of Vodafone’s customer data. 

What is happening?

Unlike the ‘Wangiri’ scam, where scammers use a fixed number to make short calls (a few rings) and then terminate the call, in this situation scammers have many different numbers, all beginning with +4422 which they are using to make calls.

Blocking these calls becomes difficult as whenever a +4422 number is blocked the scammer will simply move on to another +4422 number.

UK regulator, Ofcom, have confirmed that this number range is a “virtual number” range which means it is not linked to any UK geographical region.  This means that the calls from this number range could be coming from anywhere in the world where the scammers have purchased these numbers. 

What Vodafone is doing

Vodafone have implemented a technical change in their mobile network to block the calls with the number prefix +4422.  They are also making changes to the platform with the view to further reduce the number of ongoing spam calls where possible.  

As many of these calls are being routed to Vodafone from other telco companies, they are working together with them to block the calls and the international links that these calls are coming from. 

Vodafone have also blocked this number range for outbound calling on the Vodafone switch, which means VF customers will be unable to return any of the +4422 calls.

We have been assured that Vodafone will continue to work with other telco companies here in New Zealand and abroad to takes steps to prevent these calls from happening where and when they can.

What you can do:

Remain vigilant and continue to report any nuisance calls to iSG by logging a ticket through Supportal. Be sure to provide the following information:

• Date and time the call was received
• Calling Party Number (eg +4422xxxxx) 
• Your Number

Please be advised that there is a currently a scam taking place that appears as an NZ Post delivery. For full details check out stuff.co.nz/NZPostScam and be careful with sharing your information.