UK’s TV Licensing Users Hit With Large Scale Phishing Scam

• A number of internet users are reporting fake emails from TV Licensing.
• The customer care department of the company is being bombarded with calls following the phishing scam.
• A phishing URL redirects users to a ‘refund’ page to collect credit card data and personal information.

TV Licensing is suffering from a phishing scam with unknown attackers sending users fake refund emails and requesting them to input their personal details and credit card data. Customer support representatives of the company are experiencing a large spike in the number of calls inquiring about the emails.

Thought it might be fake! £492.57? pic.twitter.com/QQEfWQSgnl

— Kaz (@Kaz_Elgood) September 15, 2018

The fake emails sent out to TV Licensing users claim that they are eligible for a refund and it includes a URL that takes users to a fake website that’s well built and resembles the user interface of TV Licensing’s web pages. Users are required to fill in their details to receive a varying refund amount.  The phishing scam is also attempting to get data for social engineering by asking for details like each user’s mother’s maiden name or other personal questions so they can be used to crack other accounts belonging to the user’s emails. The phishing scam promises to resolve the payments within two to three days but needless to say, it is just a scam. Some refund emails promise up to £492.57.

Image Courtesy of MalwareBytes

According to Malwarebytes, the TV Licensing phishing emails may not necessarily be from the same campaign as there are some differences in the phishing methods across the emails. Some of the websites that users are redirected to have a copyright notice from 2017 attached while some are from 2018. Regardless, both variants are fake. There are also no HTTPS websites spotted so far but there may be variants of the phishing page that come with secure pages as a full investigation on the scam is not yet complete.

Some users have also reported dubious attachments included. TV Licensing is currently working with security firms to investigate the issue while asking users not to fall pretty to the phishing scam. TV Licensing users have been requested to be more vigilant and not respond to such emails.

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