Blame DOGE
Some claim that the reach of the federal Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, is too broad. That talking point no doubt is what led to a scammer blaming DOGE as part of an email fraud.
The subject line to my personal email account read, “Your Email Security Compromised,” and it was followed by a rather dire message—again, completely fake.
“Due to the nature of this notification, we expect full compliance from all mail subscribers immediately. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), under the Trump administration, has enacted new email security laws that require all email service providers in the U.S. to implement changes with immediate effect or face sanctions,” the fraudulent email read. Then there was a link that claimed to be to the email provider, but hovering over the link shows it was to a different site…just like the return address in the email claimed to be from the mail support team, but the actual address was to a fraudsters account.
The email continued, “The instructions are simple: Update your email account security to enjoy the new benefits. Failure to update your email account security, will result in permanent email termination and deletion of all content. As a member, your email privacy is a right, not a privilege, we guarantee level plain field for end to end security.”
I think they meant “playing field” instead of “plain field”—another tip that this was a scam. The idea was to put up a fake support page, ask me there to change my password which in reality was giving the fraudsters my personal information, and then they’d have my account.
This was easy to spot and easy to stop. But if your mindset was anti-DOGE, that everything the Trump Administration was doing was bad…you might have been willing to believe them. “Of course, Elon Musk is now regulating everyone’s email account,” you’d think. “Are there no limits to what he will do?”
Those folks would probably still blame Musk even after being told they’d been played for a fool.
At least the attempt to steal my information ended by saying “warm regards”…
