USPS ‘We Have Sent You a Message’ Malware Email
The original site is no longer online; links go to the Internet Archive copy.
What the fact-checkers found
According to this message, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has sent you an email containing confidential personal information.
The message urges you to click a button to access the supposed confidential information.
However, USPS did not send the email. The email is a criminal ploy designed to trick you into installing malware on your computer.
Clicking the link opens a compromised website that prompts you to download a file that supposedly contains the confidential message. Opening the file can install the malware.
The purpose of the malware may vary. Once installed, the malware may harvest sensitive information such as banking passwords from your computer and send it to the criminals. Or, it may encrypt all of the files on your computer and then demand that you pay a ransom to receive the decryption key.
Be wary of any unsolicited email that claims to be from USPS or another delivery service. Criminals regularly distribute malware via fake notification emails claiming to be from courier companies around the world.
If you receive a suspicious or unexpected notification message from a courier company, do not open any attachments or click any links that it contains.
If you have an online account with the courier service, always login by entering the address into your browser’s address bar rather than by clicking a link in an email.
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