This is the kind of junk you can expect to see in your email over the next few weeks, following the recent alert regarding the Heartbleed virus.
We received this email to our news account. Close examination of the email shows the “From” address to be icq_team@icq.com. Computer geeks might have heard of ICQ. For the rest of us, according to Wikipedia, “ICQ LLC is an instant messaging computer program that was first developed and popularized by the Israeli company Mirabilis, which was acquired by America Online, and since April 2010 owned by Mail.ru Group.”
Regardless of who they are, they are clearly not linked to a Canadian bank.
Their imbedded link (Click aqui, https://www.cibc.com) actually points to http://www.iscp-nyc.org/assets/snippets/eform/canadian/cibc.html. ISCP is also a membership site.
According to their “About” page, “The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) is a leading nonprofit, residency-based contemporary art institution for emerging to mid-career artists and curators from around the world.”
According to the CIBC’s fraud information (https://www.cibc.com/ca/legal/fraud-examples.html), CIBC does not send the following emails:
• Unsolicited messages asking customers to provide, confirm or update personal records;
• From a third party address or link to a third party site;
• Containing no information about why a customer is receiving email;
• Requiring an urgent response.
To check the validity of any email you may receive, do NOT follow any links. Go directly to your bank’s URL and log in from their site.
Heartbleed has presented scammers the perfect fear-based opportunity to start phishing for your personal information. Don’t fall for it.
