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Lucky Penny: Missing ATM Card Attack Bypasses Scanners

Written by Jeremy Fuchs | April 13, 2021

Believe it or not, the classic Nigerian Prince scam is still around and still kicking. In 2018, Americans lost over $700,000 to the scam. Yikes.

This attack is not that, but it's similar. This is a classic financial scam that aims to reward users with massive amounts of money if they hand over bank account and other details.. It was missed by Proofpoint but stopped by Avanan.

Here's what it looks like: 

The classic Nigerian Prince scheme lies in an "investment opportunity"; this attack lies with a missing ATM card that happens to have millions of dollars on it. 

A few things tipped us off, including the fact that our AI analysis of ate attack uncovered financial language. When paired with insignificant historical reputation with the sender, among other things, it gave us the "highest" phishing confidence level, as shown in our analysis below: