BEWARE: Online Scams Abound!

Unfortunately, there are many scammers looking for opportunities to take advantage of non-suspecting individuals in many different ways. Please be aware of schemes that may be circulating among or seemingly from Community of Christ members, friends and Mission Centre Leadership. 

Scammers use email or text messages to trick you into giving them your personal and financial information. If you reply, the next email may ask you to purchase a gift card on their behalf or to provide personal information. 
 
Phishing attacks
Phishing is the act of sending communications that appear to be legitimate but are fraudulent. Phishing emails often contain malicious attachments or links to malicious websites. Threat actors carry out phishing attacks to trick you into disclosing sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, social insurance numbers, or banking credentials.
Threat actors can carefully craft emails that look convincing or legitimate. For instance, a threat actor may send emails that use personal information about an individual within Community of Christ by using publicly available information from the church's website or social media accounts.

Given our desire to trust (and the number of emails we receive daily), it can be easy to believe the content we read in these emails, reply to the email, click on embedded links, or open attachments. However, attachments may contain malicious software, and the links may direct you to malicious websites. Even if an email comes from someone you know, you should always think twice before clicking links or opening attachments.

Identifying malicious emails
Malicious emails can be difficult to identify, but there are some steps you should take to determine whether emails are legitimate or fake:

• Check that the sender’s email address has a valid username and domain name. A suspicious email address could be similar to the one below:
  • “John Doe <johndoe.%[email protected]>”.
• Verify that you know the sender of an email and that its tone is consistent with the sender.
• Look for grammatical errors or typos in the body of the message. Companies want to maintain a high degree of professionalism and generally do not send out emails that contain these types of errors.
• Consider the tone of the email or what is being offered. If the email is threatening or sounds too good to be true, then it is probably a phishing email.
• Pay attention to what is being requested. Most companies do not ask for sensitive or personal information in an email.

Handling malicious emails
Handle suspicious emails with care. When in doubt, avoid opening suspicious emails and contact the sender by another means (e.g. phone call) to confirm they contacted you.
Do not click on links, attachments or QR codes provided in emails. If you are being asked to log in to an account for an unsolicited reason, do not click the link. Do not open attached files and avoid scanning QR codes. Instead, visit the company’s website by manually entering the URL in your web browser or search for the website through a search engine.

For further information including how to report suspicious emails, visit Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Government of Canada.