With the holiday season underway you might have invitations lighting up your inbox, but look before you click as hackers might be waiting to take over your account.
That’s what Louise Martell thought when she clicked on an Evite sent from her friend.
“She’s invited us to events in the past. I thought, 'Well, it’s the season,'” Martell said.
An Evite is an email invitation to a party, meeting, or any other event that allows the user to RSVP. When Martell clicked on the event, she followed the prompts, but nothing happened. She didn’t know it but she just became the victim of a phishing email chain.
Martell asked her friend about the Evite.
“She told me that it was bogus. It wasn't from her. She had gotten an Evite from someone at church, it was also a fake Evite," Martell said.
The next day, Martell was locked out of her account.
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“They had changed my password. They had changed my security questions," she said.
Martell called AT&T and they helped her to regain access to her account. When she regained access, she found that her account had been used to send out more fake Evites and spread the scam.
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NBC 5 Responds found that the company that makes Evites issued a security alert for users in 2019, when the site was breached by hackers. Exposed information included names, usernames, email addresses, and passwords.
Experts say her story is a reminder that information exposed in past date breaches can end up being used years later. Always take a closer look on something before you click.
Martell wondered what other personal information they could’ve gotten from her account.
“Obviously there’s a chain going on here," she said.
Martell warned other to protect themselves from this scam by not clicking on the Evite and ask the sender personally if it is legitimate.
