Don’t get caught out by this Amazon email scam

Email security company MailGuard is warning online shoppers to be vigilant this week in the face of an invoice scam trying to piggyback off the launch of Amazon Australia.

The firm uncovered an email scam on Thursday involving fake payment receipts that contain malware. The messages have “Thank you for shopping with Amazon” in the subject line, and provide details of payment that it says the recipient has made.

The message points recipients towards clicking on a “order confirmation receipt”, which opens a zipped Javascript folder containing malicious code, says MailGuard.

There have been a range of invoice scams hitting invoices this year, with this type of scam looking to catch out busy shoppers ahead of a weekend of festive spending.

“This fraudulent email leveraging their brand-name is clearly trying to capitalise on the current buzz around the company,” the company said in a blog post.

Email users are encouraged to check the file type of any attachments they are sent.

“JavaScript files are not used for simple documents like receipts, so they are a red flag for scam detection.”

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