UK Supreme Court Issues Alert Regarding Scam Subpoena Emails

The UK’s Supreme Court has been forced to warn netizens of a phishing campaign using the institution’s seal and logo to trick unsuspecting recipients. The final court of appeal in the UK for civil cases told individuals to ignore the fraudulent message. A brief statement on its website had the following: “Orders made by the Supreme Court are only sent to the parties to proceedings before the Court, and will bear the courts seal and logo. The Supreme Court does not issue 'subpoenas' for criminal cases and if you receive an email purporting to be such you are advised to ignore it.” The volume of global phishing attacks hit a 12-year high in the first quarter of 2016 and stayed high throughout the year. Just this week, new stats from Proofpoint revealed that phishing via social media channels had jumped 500% in Q4. It also claimed that the vast majority of phishing email links (99%) direct to dedicated sites designed to steal user credentials. Exploit kits accounted for just 1%.