Virgin Media O2 Warn Customers to Watch Out for Fake 5G SIM Upgrade Emails
Customers of broadband and mobile giant VMO2 (Virgin Media and O2) have been warned to keep an eye out for a new round of phishing emails, which use the retirement of O2’s 3G network as an excuse to falsely invite subscribers to “upgrade your current SIM card to a new 5G-ready SIM“.
“Please note that these emails were NOT sent by Virgin Media O2 and should NOT be responded to. Do not click on any links or reply to these messages. Instead, we recommend deleting them immediately. If you’d like to report the email, you can forward it to our dedicated phishing inbox at phishing@virginmediao2.co.uk,” said an official statement from VMO2.
The authentic looking email is typically designed to steal your sensitive personal and financial data, or to possibly assist in hijacking your computer system by encouraging the installation of malicious software. Sadly, such emails are a common threat to all telecoms providers, which are frequently having to deal with authentic looking SCAM emails, letters, calls and texts from fraudsters.
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We should point out that O2 has now effectively already completed their switch-off of the old legacy 3G mobile network, which is another red flag for authenticity.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Is this suggesting that the bad guys know who is an O2 customer or (more likely) is it just the usual blanket bombing along the lines of “suspected fraudulent transactions on your Bank of America account”?
I imagine it will be a mass email. Sending email is effectively zero cost, so easier to just send to everyone. Those not on O2 will ignore it.
I don’t quite see the attack avenue here since there is no link to do anything in the example shown other than “Contact Us”. I would have expected something like a link to say “click here to update your SIM for 5G”. Maybe they expect people to dig out the email and click on “Contact Us” when the SIM inevitably doesn’t arrive.
So soon after VM gave more jobs to scam central, this took place.
If I was a scammer, I wouldn’t pretend to be O2. That would put people off!