Phishing, a word that essentially comes from the word “fishing”, is used to trick you into clicking on a link where the scammer can obtain some valuable information from you, such as your credit card details or passwords to your bank account.
While phishing is not really a Nigerian scammer’s favourite trick, some still use it.
You should also know that phishing can very well come from your next-door neighbor, and you can’t just conclude that such a scam is coming from a Nigerian.
I also shared my personal experience of a phishing attack.
Ways your information could be obtained
Your personal details must be in the public domain for this to happen. This could be your email on your employer’s website or the contact form of your personal website.
But the more popular ones are if your organization is hacked and your personal details were stolen (Nigerian scammers are social engineers, not computer hackers), Nigerian scammers can buy that information from the dark web.
You could have also given your emails to a romance lover you met online… You know, remember that one time they asked for your e-mails to send over some document?
Types of phishing attacks that a Nigerian scammer can employ
There are lots of phishing attacks. They can take different forms, and not all phishing attacks are for monetary reasons.
Here are a few ways that a Nigerian scammer can hit you.
1. The Nigerian charity donation scam
In this type of scam, the actor is counting on the fact that you will be greedy enough to want to obtain money that you have not worked for.
Here is an example of a Nigerian scam phishing email.
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject: A charitable donation for you
Hello,
My name is Janet. I am the personal assistant to Duchess Joana Morrison (this could be an actual person). Mrs. Joana is a philanthropist who has vowed to donate all of her inherited wealth to the less privileged in society.
Although Mrs. Joana has a large private foundation, she will also feel that her workers are hand-picking people with sentiments and has contracted me to randomly find people for her donations.
I’m getting in touch with you if you know people who might need help or if you yourself need a $5,000 donation and can explain why you should get it.
To read more about her and to send in your application, kindly click on this link below.
www.forbes.com/news/charity/joanamorrison/2333444/ythsoi
Sincerely,
Janet David
If you read and just delete this email, then there is no problem. If you click on this link, view the website, and go back, then you are most likely safe.
However, the problem occurs when you get to this website. You can find the profile of the “philanthropist” and they ask you to apply for some good easy money, and all you have to do is pay a $1 administrative charge.
To pay this amount, however, you will need to enter your real credit card details on a fake website and the scammer simply obtains the information needed to wipe you clean.
2. Nigerian payment receipt fraud
Even as a Nigerian, I have received several such emails, and the idea is that the scammer needs you to click on a link where they can extract your information.
In my case, the scammer sent me an email with the title “payment receipt” and there was a document attached to it.
The English and formatting of the writing were poorly done. The words read something like, “Here is a receipt for the payment we made to you.”
But there was no link. I believe the email providers are catching up to malicious links. So they attached an HTML document to the email, telling me to click the email in order to see the receipt.
But with my knowledge of web design, an HTML document can simply hold a website url and clicking on it will load the website on your browser. The reason why I emphasize this is that you might have been trained not to click on a link if you are not sure of the source, but what you might not have been told is that opening an HTML file is just the same as clicking on a link.
The only thing I said to myself was “if you are going to send me a receipt, you could have sent that as a PDF file.” I am not clicking on your link.
Keep your eyes open and be careful out there.
Author
Abbey Johnson has a Masters degree as an engineer and has over 3 years of teaching and research experience. He is happiest when on a bike and is also interested in electric energy and computer Science.