First and foremost, Simply Web Services will never send a client an email stating that you need to give us your password. Second, if you think something is fishy, ask, we are here to answer your questions.

It is nothing new, we all know that Cyber criminals love to use phishing emails to impersonate someone and then trick someone else into doing something. One of the most common phishing emails is impersonating your bank. We have seen the emails from a “bank” asking for all your information. Or this one from the DMV.

The bad actor will make a realistic website, either cloning the site from your bank or making one that looks like it represents your bank. The concept is that you will think it is real and enter your username and password for your bank. Most of these cyber criminals get too greedy and then they ask you for your SSN or Driver’s license details and other information that your bank is likely not going to ask, they may have you confirm their records, but they will not just ask you for that information out of the blue and usually tip you off that something isn’t right.

The same trick is often applied to mimicking your email provider, in hopes that they can gain access to your email account and gain more information that they can use later to hack you further.

Normally this phishing attempt states that your email provider needs you to change your password right away, due to some major security issue. Then they have you click a button in the email, that brings up a realistic enough-looking interface to enter your username and password into. Then it asks you to change your password. Once they have your email address and password, they now have access to your account. Usually once you “change” your email password, you are directed to a page that mimics some type of server issue and to try back later.

In the event that Simply Web Services needs you to change your password. The email we send to you will contain a link to your own website URL with a :2222 behind it. That is the same method you use to access your webmail. We will not ask you to send it to us to change. And if we do, we will call you on the phone first. If there is ever an emergency that requires us to immediately change passwords, we will change the password and then try to get a hold of you via your contact information to give you the new password. If you don’t have other contact information on file with us, please give us a call so we can get that information for you and update our records.

NEVER just blindly enter private details without first verifying what you are doing.

NEVER click on embedded hyperlink text in an email, instead enter the information manually

If you have questions on how to access your email or change your password visit our support page and knowledge base

If you think your server is offline (and you are an SWS client), check out our off-site support page at sws-stats.com