Oral B Pro Testers Email Scam
This email uses Oral B’s brand to promote a testing opportunity for a free toothbrush. It is malicious in nature and should not be trusted. The Oral B brand is known worldwide for their oral hygiene products; this email is clearly targeted at their Australian market. Keep reading to find out how to identify this emails true intentions.
Figure A shows the email in question – it is clean and well branded. The subject line reads “Wanted: Oral B Pro Testers Australia” while the sender is shown as “Oral B Testers Wanted” – however the email address is in no way associated with the official Oral B Australia website. They have used the receiver’s email address (in black for privacy reasons) within the content to help the authenticity of the email. There are 4 dangerous and hidden links within this email: the image, the view online link at the top, the sign up here button and even the unsubscribe link at the bottom. Clicking any of these links with lead you to a malicious website that will attempt to infect your computer with malware.
Figure B is a screenshot we were safely able to capture of the malicious website through the MailShark filtering software. It is well branded and includes some notable elements to entice you to click through again. Doing so will put your computer at risk – do not click anywhere on this page if you reach it and delete the email from your inbox.
Things to take note of on this malicious web page:
- The URL will be irrelevant and unofficial
- Small mistakes in design (buttons cut off etc.)
- Stating only 4 more people needed to entice you to click faster
- Time limit also enticing you to click through faster
- Fake terms and conditions at the bottom
- Testimonial to help authenticate the promotion
- Amount of visitors on the page and test packages left at the bottom to make you not want to miss out
- Simple question they are asking you to qualify (this is their way of getting you to click through – by clicking this you are basically giving them permission to infect your computer with malware)
Be very careful when receiving any email offering freebies or claiming you have won something – majority of these will have a malicious nature. Email scam tactics are constantly becoming more convincing, so if you are ever in doubt, delete the email just in case!
Steph Kent
MailShark
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