San Diego, CA
This is the phishing scam that gets a San Diego identity theft expert ‘really, very angry’
Digital thieves are nothing if not persistent and innovative.
They keep finding new ways to try to part you from your money.
Phishing — where thieves pose as trusted entities or send legitimate looking emails or messages to trick you into giving them access to your accounts — is a widespread method. And it is constantly evolving.
“We’ve seen phishing go through the roof,” said Eva Velasquez, the CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a San Diego-based national nonprofit.
But knowledge is power. So here are three emerging phishing threats to look out for, according to internet safety experts. All three threats target key parts of people’s digital lives: email attachments that lead to fake login pages, multi-factor authentication trickery and deceptive calendar invites.
Spending a few minutes reading these pointers could help you avoid getting your ID or money stolen and save you countless hours of dealing with the fallout.
HTML attachments that open fake login pages
Imagine a busy professional who is in email action mode. In the past 30 minutes on a Saturday morning, he has filled out emailed liability waivers for his seven children’s summer camps, filed an expense report for work, answered a secure portal message from the veterinarian about his sick puppy’s prescription, skimmed 182 email subject lines and paid five bills from his email inbox, including a car insurance premium and his beloved cheese-of-the-month club.
Amid this flurry of inbound emails, ads, invoices and secure messages, he is working on autopilot: opening messages, skimming, clicking and signing in.
What a perfect opportunity.
Scammers are taking advantage of user distraction — and their trust — by sending emails with HTM or HTML attachments. When clicked, those open a browser file that looks like secure, familiar login page. These pages might look like secure invoice viewers, file-sharing services like DocuSign or Dropbox, or sign-in pages to platforms including Microsoft 365.
“Once the user enters their credentials, they are sent surreptitiously to the attacker’s server,” said Vlad Cristescu, the head of cybersecurity with ZeroBounce, a Florida company that helps businesses lower their rate of bounced marketing emails.
Why this method is especially insidious: “There isn’t a clickable link in the email, so standard email security filters (which scan for malicious URLs or attachments like PDFs and ZIPs) may not catch it,” Cristescu added.
To prevent this, he added, companies should “restrict HTML attachments unless essential, and users should treat unfamiliar HTML files the same way they’d treat a suspicious link — don’t open it unless you’re absolutely sure of the sender.”
If you do receive incoming communication with an HTML link or attachment, don’t engage, said Velasquez, with the ITRC.
“Don’t click on links, people. That’s the big, overarching message,” she said. Instead, go to the source: call the phone number on the back of your credit card, visit the bank in person.
Multifactor authentication tricks
If you are one of the many people who uses multifactor authentication, take note.
Multifactor authentication is still very helpful and should be used.
But Cristescu flagged one way that scammers are taking this tool — which is designed to make people’s online accounts more secure — and using it to slither in.
As a refresher, multifactor authentication is an added layer of protection that prevents data thieves from logging into your accounts if they have your username and password. It helps ensure that you’re the one who typed in your password when you log in, and not some scammer in the Philippines or Poughkeepsie.
To use multifactor authentication, you typically download an app, such as Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator. You register your sensitive online accounts, such as Facebook, bank or email, with that app. Then, every time you log into a registered website, the authenticator app generates a new, random code that you enter after your password as a second layer of verification.
With the rise of this protection, a new threat has emerged: Scammers who have your username and password can send log-in requests to your authenticator app. Next, the scammer can pose as an IT expert from your workplace and ask you to approve the log-in request.
If you fall for it, then boom — the scammer is in.
This technique “exploits a user’s frustration and trust in IT. If you’re receiving multiple (authenticator) prompts you didn’t initiate, that’s not a glitch – it’s an attack,” Cristescu said. He recommends pausing, never approving these unexpected requests and flagging the interaction with IT.
Velasquez added that if you get an authenticator notification and you didn’t just log in yourself, “That is a huge red flag. Stop and address it. Don’t ignore it.”
Anytime you interact with IT, be sure you’re the one initiating that contact, she added. If someone from IT calls or emails you, disconnect and reach back out using a trusted method, such as the same phone number you always dial.
Fake calendar invites
A third technique data thieves are using is calendar invites.
“I just get really very angry about this one,” Velasquez said. “It is super hard to detect.”
Here’s what to look out for. If you use an online calendar like Google calendar or the native iPhone calendar app, you might receive an invitation to an event you didn’t see coming. Sometimes these meetings are legitimate. Sometimes, they are not.
Scammers “are now sending meeting requests with malicious links embedded in the invite or ‘join’ button. These invitations sync directly into calendars and often go unquestioned,” according to ZeroBounce.
Scammers use calendar invites because they have “built-in credibility – they’re not usually scrutinized like emails,” Cristescu said. Look for meeting requests from unknown senders and vague event names like “Sync” or “Project Review,” he added.
In some jobs or roles, meetings routinely get added to calendars by other people — clients, prospects, coworkers, bosses, peers.
“I have gotten these repeatedly,” said Velasquez, with the ITRC. “Depending on your lifestyle and your job and how you work, these are going to be particularly challenging. They are real calendar invites. The problem is they have malicious software embedded in them — so when you click on portions of them, ‘Click to join,’ it’s like opening an attachment (or) clicking on a suspicious link. It’s the same principle.”
Cristescu, with ZeroBounce, shared this tip: “Treat those just like a phishing email. Disable auto-accept where possible and review every invite manually before clicking anything.”
Never stop questioning what lands in your inbox or calendar, Cristescu added. “Always verify the sender’s email address, ensure that any link you click matches the legitimate domain, and look out for subtle red flags like spelling errors or unusual formatting.”
A big picture pointer
“All three of these (scams) are so common that it has probably happened to every single person reading the article — at least one of them. That’s how ubiquitous these are,” Velasquez said.
She shared this broader thought: It’s less important to know how to respond to each scenario and more important to pause, be skeptical, double check.
It’s important to be ever more skeptical, because AI makes it easier and easier for thieves to create convincing ruses, Cristescu and Velasquez both said.
AI “really helps with making these phishing offers look and sound so much more legitimate,” Velasquez said. “And with the amount of data that is out there from public sources and from data breaches, it’s very easy to see what relationships people have.” Where you bank, where you do business — that is all fodder for someone to create a copycat page designed to trick you into logging in.
Adopt an “investigator mindset,” Velasquez said. Use this helpful reminder: the acronym STAR, which stands for Stop. Think. Ask questions or ask for help. Reassess.
The ITRC nonprofit can answer questions, for free, through phone and live chat. Toll-free phone: 888-400-5530. Live chat staffed by people, not bots: https://www.idtheftcenter.org/victim-help-center/
SAN DIEGO, Calif. — A Navy jet that crashed into San Diego Bay within striking distance of homes, hotels, and restaurants had climbed to about 8,000 feet in the air with no one on board after its pilots ejected following a failed landing in February, Team 10 has learned.
And now documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from the recently completed investigation into the accident are shedding new light on the chaotic moments leading up to the crash of the $67 million EA-18G Growler.
They reveal concerns about runway conditions, a fuel leak midair, and a warning from air traffic control that created confusion in the cockpit.
According to the records, the pilot felt something was wrong with his brakes moments before the mishap.
On the day of the accident, the pilot and the electronic warfare officer in the backseat had to get into a spare jet due to a fuel leak. Capt. Brandon Viets/Premier Sportsfishing via AP
The crew took off from North Island and joined a tanker to refuel midair. They had a “minor leak from the basket” and decided to return to base rather than risking being more than 500 miles off the coast.
As they prepared their descent, the crew was told there was water on the runway at North Island.
The pilot landed but was up against tailwinds and higher-than-normal speeds. He told investigators, “I knew I would have to get on the brakes a bit more.”
He said as he applied them, he noticed the brakes felt “mushy or at least a bit different than normal.”
U.S. Navy
Fearing the jet wouldn’t stop in time, the pilot started a go-around maneuver. Then a tower controller warned, “Not enough runway.”
“This was said in a very concerned voice, which caused some confusion and concern,” the pilot said.
‘Eject! Eject! Eject!’
Retired Air Force accident investigator Rich Martindell said he was surprised the air traffic controller made that warning and thought it was inappropriate.
“The tower wasn’t in a position to really know the aircraft’s speed and what the whole situation was,” he said in an interview.
Martindell, who has flown the F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet, a similar aircraft that lacks the Growler’s electronic warfare gear, said the controller couldn’t have known how much runway was left.
“It clouded the issue and caused the crew to have more doubt about the situation.”
The pilot told an investigator moments after having issues with the brakes, “It felt like the jet was not going flying and the water was approaching, so I called for ejection with ‘EJECT, EJECT, EJECT’ and then we pulled the handles,” his witness statement shows.
Jack Fischetti
The crew safely parachuted into San Diego Bay and were rescued by a fishing boat.
The jet continued to climb to roughly 8,000 feet before dropping for over a minute and crashing into San Diego Bay near Shelter Island, the Navy investigation found.
“It looks like what it did is stalled. So, it got nose high, ran out of airspeed, came back around, and then the video we see of it going into the water, nose first, just all happened after the ejection,” said Martindell.
Amol Brown/Team 10
The Growler’s chaotic drop from the sky was captured on a resident’s doorbell and nearby surveillance cameras, which showed it nose-diving into the bay.
“If this aircraft had continued on even a second more, it could have hit Shelter Island or flown into a populated neighborhood in Point Loma — very, very close to a tragedy,” retired U.S. Marine Corps Col. Steve Ganyard told ABC News after the crash.
Navy says human error, weather to blame
After Team 10 obtained the documents, the Navy confirmed in October that it had finished the investigation into the mishap and ruled out mechanical failure.
Instead, investigators determined the crash was caused by human error exacerbated by a combination of factors, including adverse weather.
“The aircraft was unable to safely stop on the runway due to wet runway conditions and landing with a tailwind. The investigation determined that the pilot should have instead executed maximum braking techniques,” said Navy Cmdr. Amelia Umayam, a spokesperson for Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet.
The Navy spent weeks recovering debris from the water and said roughly 85% of the aircraft was recovered including significant debris.
“The U.S. Navy has well-established and rigorous programs for crew resource management, adherence to training rules, professionalism and airmanship,” Umayam wrote in a prepared statement.
“In the days and weeks that followed the crash, leadership across the enterprise reinforced to all crews that strict adherence to these programs is critical to safe and effective flight operations.”
Martindell still believes the air traffic controller’s warning was a contributing factor in the mishap and may have altered the pilot’s decision-making in the final moments before the ejection.
“He may have made a different decision I’m sure that that call had some influence on his decision to call for the ejection.”
Team 10 Investigative Reporter Austin Grabish covers military investigations, the Medical Board of California and the U.S.-Mexico border. If you have a story for Austin to investigate, email austin.grabish@10news.com
SAN DIEGO, CA — A $50,000 reward is being offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction in a 2018 killing of a man in San Diego, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced Monday.
Arthur Jordan, 28, was fatally shot July 19, 2018, by an unknown assailant while sitting in a car in the 3000 block of Martin Avenue. At the time of his death, Jordan was a barber working in his family’s barber shop.
San Diego Police Department investigators have interviewed witnesses and potential suspects, but have exhausted all leads.
“We are very thankful for the governor’s support in our efforts to find justice for Jordan and his family,” said SDPD detective Chris Murray.
Under California law, law enforcement agencies may ask the governor to issue rewards in specific unsolved cases where they have exhausted all investigative leads, to encourage individuals with information about the crimes to come forward. Public assistance is vital to law enforcement, and rewards may encourage public cooperation needed to apprehend those who have committed serious offenses.
SDPD has requested that a reward be offered to encourage anyone with information about this murder, urging them to contact Sgt. Joel Tien at 619-531- 2323. Anonymous tips can also be submitted to San Diego Crime Stoppers at 888- 580-8477.
The souped-up Pacific storm that will hit San Diego County on Christmas Eve could drop 3 to 4 inches of rain over a short period, making travel dicey and raising the risk of flooding, the National Weather Service said.
San Diego averages less than 2 inches of rain in December and hasn’t had a drop this month.
The region will catch the tail of a storm that tapped into copious amounts of subtropical moisture, causing it to grow and become more explosive. The Pineapple Express, as some call it, will affect the entire state. The first big urban hit comes Monday when the system is expected to slam the San Francisco Bay Area. It’ll then sink toward Southern California.
The storm, which also is packing strong winds, could slow or disrupt traffic on Interstate 5 and U.S. Highway 101, prime routes between San Diego and San Francisco.
Forecasters say the system will push into Orange and San Diego counties and the Inland Empire late Tuesday night and unleash heavy rain, and possibly lightning, on Wednesday. The wind could gust as high as 40 mph in spots from San Diego to Julian, forecasters said.
The most intense rain is expected to fall from mid-morning until late-afternoon Wednesday, when last-minute Christmas shoppers will be crowding freeways. Downpours could close some parking areas at the Fashion Valley Mall in Mission Valley, which often floods in heavy rain. Showers will last into Thursday, Christmas Day, and forecasters say a second storm could hit over the weekend.
A flash flood watch will be in effect countywide from 4 a.m. Wednesday to 1 a.m. Thursday.
The forecast has turned worrisome over the past couple of days.
The weather service earlier thought the storm could produce about 1.5 inches of rain in San Diego, and roughly twice as much across inland valleys and mountains.
On Sunday, they said San Diego could get 2.5 to 4 inches of precipitation. And there was deeper confidence that some areas east of Interstate 15 would be seeing 3 to 4 inches of rain.
Snow isn’t expected, though. The storm is comparatively warm due to its connections with the subtropics.
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