Boughton Leigh Junior School

Scammers are sending coronavirus related ‘phishing’ emails to steal personal and financial information, Warwickshire Trading Standards is warning. 

The emails may contain dangerous attachments containing viruses and spyware or encourage recipients to follow a link in the email to a fake and/or malicious website.  

Beware of any suspicious/unexpected emails you receive related to coronavirus, for example: 

• Emails that that encourage recipients to provide their bank details in order to receive coronavirus related Government payments (e.g. to replace wages or school dinner payments) 
• Emails designed to look like they have been sent by the NHS or other Government bodies. These emails might falsely claim to link to a list of coronavirus cases in your area 
• Emails that offer purported medical advice to help protect you against the coronavirus. The emails might claim to be from medical experts near Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus outbreak began 
• Emails targeted at businesses and specifically those working from home. These scam emails may appear to come from the company IT department or Personnel department and contain fake policy document attachments which the recipient is asked to download and read. 

How you can protect yourself: 

• Think before you click. Hover over any links in emails. You should be able to see the web page address the link take you to in the bottom left hand corner of your browser  
• Verify the email sender. Even if you receive an email from someone know personally, if the email is unexpected or appears suspicious call the sender and check the email is genuine. Scammers can hack personal email accounts to send out phishing emails    
• Use a firewall and keep your security and other software installed on your computer up to date 
• Install anti-phishing, anti-virus and email security software 
• Phishing attacks often use malicious file attachments. Such files are often named in such a way as to encourage recipients to open them. Treat all file attachments with suspicion 
• For more advice, visit Get Safe Online: https://www.getsafeonline.org/ 
• Keep up to date with the latest Warwickshire coronavirus scams, visit: https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/scams 

 Please help us spread these messages by forwarding them on as you see fit or posting it online on social media or the Internet