Dear Artists,
Beware, this alarming email has been sent out to many creative professionals and models around the world (see screenshots below). My colleague received it today, did a bit of digging on the web and found posts about it that are almost a year old. The text in these emails is pretty much the same, only the dates of these “commercial shoots” keep changing to appear upcoming.
It is unclear what exactly its authors are trying to achieve, but there are a lot of red flags. It could be anything from personal information phishing to something much worse (please read the Facebook post linked below). The fact that they are interchanging two famous photographers’ names – Annie Leibovitz and Jill Greenberg – in some of these messages and keep sending these out changing the dates of these imaginary shoots show that these are NOT LEGITIMATE proposals.
Please read and share to warn your colleagues, young aspiring models you know and their parents. If you ever receive such an email, follow these recommendations from UB Information Technology experts:
- Do not open it. In some cases, the act of opening the phishing email may cause you to compromise the security of your Personally Identifiable Information (PII).
- Delete it immediately to prevent yourself from accidentally opening the message in the future.
- Do not download any attachments accompanying the message. Attachments may contain malware such as viruses, worms or spyware.
- Never click links that appear in the message. Links embedded within phishing messages direct you to fraudulent websites.
- Do not reply to the sender. Ignore any requests the sender may solicit and do not call phone numbers provided in the message.
- Report it. Help others avoid phishing attempts:
- Check if the attempt has already been reported.
- If not, report it to UB. Attach the mail message with its mail headers in your message. Tell them you have changed your password.
- Use the Federal Trade Commission’s online Complaint Assistant if you have been phished.
