This story appeared 4/20/2012 in the Air Force Retiree News Service authored by Tech. Sgt. Benjamin Rojek out of Fort George G. Meade, MD. The following link will allow you to read the complete story under DFAS Warns Service Members of Scam Emails.
Tech Sgt Rojek writes, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service ...recently released a statement warning of email scams targeting military members, military retirees, and civilian employees.
According to the statement, the most recent email scam indicates that individuals who are receiving disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs may be able to obtain additional funds from the Internal Revenue Service, but only if they send copies of their income tax information.
Scammers have even gone so far as to "spoof" DFAS email addresses so that the recipients would think it was actually coming from DFAS personnel. In a spoofing email, the scammer makes it appear that the message is coming from a legitimate source. This is to try to lure the reader into believing it's genuine.
"(Scammers) manage to find a way to appear legitimate when they're not," said Edward Peace, the senior cyberwarfare instructor for the 39th Information Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, FL..."In some cases, it looks like it's from a legitimate source, but in other cases if you inspect it just a little bit deeper, just looking at where the email came from you would be tipped off right way. But most people don't look at it; they just look at the content, it looks legitimate and they go from there."
...Though these scam artists have found ways to spoof the DFAS email address, this does not mean that customer accounts were compromised.
"We have not had an incident that has threatened our security or the accounts of our customers," said Steve Burghardt, a DFAS media relations officer. "We are always on the lookout. And we're taking steps to (educate) folks."
"That's our biggest concern," he said. "As long as you keep your login credentials private and to yourself, then your account is pretty much assured a fairly decent amount of security. But if you give that away or give out that information that people can use to get new credentials ... I can always impersonate you and say, 'I lost my login credentials, get me a new one.'"
For more information on the DFAS email policy, click here.
For more retiree news and information, please visit www.retirees.af.mil.
To all of our veterans thank you for your service!
Scammers have always their way to doing something that would give them the necessary advantage. These scammers are not ordinary people with ordinary skills. These people are experts also in their fields. Therefore, they must be given enough attention on how to eliminate them.
Posted by: Ella Gonzalez | January 15, 2013 at 11:18 AM