FAQs about Phishing

Phishing refers to a fake email message that tries to trick someone into unknowingly doing something that puts them at risk.  This can include sharing personal information or downloading viruses, like malware or spyware.  

Scammers can also attempt to gather your personal or financial information over the phone. Usually, they make calls to offer you fake rate plans and promise incentives if you complete surveys or if you respond to their requests to “confirm” your account by providing sensitive information like PINs, passwords, or account numbers.

They may also try to gather information through text messages/SMS. Usually, these text messages will ask you to visit a specific website or call a certain phone number where you will be asked to provide information

Remember:  Rogers will never contact you by email, text or phone to ask for personal information including pin and account numbers.

If you open the email or attachment or click the link, you could provide a remote user access to your device and information.

• Be wary of requests for personal information. Consider this a red flag immediately. Major institutions such as banks and government services will not as ask you to send personal information by email or text.
• Don’t use the same passwords or usernames across multiple accounts. Always create a strong, unique password for your sensitive accounts and change the password often. Fraudsters may access the dark web to get lists of passwords and if you use the same one for multiple accounts, they can log in and take over your accounts.
• Don’t respond to online or phone requests for personal information such as your bank account number, even if they say they are from a company’s customer service, help desk or corporate security department. Reputable organizations like banks will never call or email and ask you for sensitive information. If you’re uncertain, contact the service provider to check if the request is legitimate.
• Be wary of urgent messages, slightly altered websites or email addresses, and emails with spelling and grammatical errors.
• Email messages that promise large sums of money but first require you to pay an “inheritance tax” or try to shock, scare or guilt you into sending money are almost certainly scams. Delete them immediately.
• Look for the lock. Be sure that any website where you do enter personal or financial information is secure. Such websites will either have addresses that start with “https” or display a small lock icon in the lower-right corner of your browser window.
• There are many resources online you can use to keep yourself safe. Check out the following sites for more information:
  • Identity Theft and Identity Fraud Victim Assistance Guide: http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/scams-fraudes/victims-guide-victimes-eng.htm
  • Email Fraud/Phishing Information: http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/scams-fraudes/phishing-eng.htm
  • The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre: https://www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca/report-signalez-eng.htm

Here are ways you can treat and avoid your device becoming part of a phishing scheme:

• Make sure any emails, attachments or links you receive are from legitimate sources before opening or clicking anything that looks unfamiliar or suspicious. Phishing attempts may look legitimate, but by examining the email or link closely, or by hovering your mouse over the link destination to check where it leads, one can usually tell it’s suspicious and not to be trusted.
• Perform a thorough virus and malware scan on your device using downloadable applications like the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool.
• If you have anti-virus software installed, make sure you’re always updated with the latest version.
• If you’ve completed the above but your device is still acting strangely, bring it to a third-party computer repair technician to solve the problem.

Remember, we will never ask for personal information like a credit card number or pin when we email, call or text you

• Think before you click.  Don’t respond to the email, provide personal information online to the sender, send or forward it to others, or click on any links or attachments included within the email.
• Forward the email to abuse@rogers.com and include a brief description of the issue, copy and paste the full email headers above the body of the forwarded email.
• If you provided your PIN/password in response to the suspicious email, or if you don’t have a PIN/password already set up on your Rogers account, contact us to change or create your PIN/password.
• For suspicious text (SMS) messages, forward them to: 7726 (SPAM).

What is a Vulnerability?