Thousands of fake emails confirming tax refunds of more than $6,000 from the Australian Taxation Office are circulating. Click to see what they look like.
It's tax time and scammers are again sending spam emails that purport to be from the Australian Taxation office but are really intended to install malware on victim's computers.
Three separate "waves" of the fake emails have been reported during July and August, including more than 10,000 messages sent on August 6.
In some cases the email includes the message "TAX REFUND NOTIFICATION" and claims that the receiver is entitled to a refund amount of more than $6,000.
We were alerted to the current wave by Bitdefender, which warns such campaigns are likely to become heavier and more targeted in the run-up to the 31 October deadline for lodging returns.
The current campaign is very similar to the one we reported last month http://www.bit.com.au/News/350337,this-is-what-the-scam-australian-taxation-office-email-looks-like.aspx . It's quite different in appearance to the one in February http://www.bit.com.au/News/331734,warning-australian-taxation-office-scam-emails-circulating.aspx , but the objective is the same - to induce recipients to open an attachment that is actually a piece of malware.
