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Fritzbox (symbol photo): attempted fraud with fake answering machine messages
Photo: AVM / obs
In a recent announcement, the Berlin company AVM, manufacturer of the Fritzbox router, warns of phishing emails "which are apparently sent in the name of the FRITZ! Box". The messages in question therefore imitate the visual appearance of real push messages that can be sent by the company's Internet routers. By advising them to have a voicemail message from the answering machine as an attachment, the senders of the fake message try to trick their victims into opening a file attached to the email. According to the AVM warning, however, this is malware.
The company does not explain what type of malware this is, only advises: "Please do not open any attachments or links in such e-mails." The company also provides tips on how to check whether the message is legitimate Fritzbox or a fake:
Compare the sender of the email with the sender you set up for the Fritzbox push service.
Check whether the phone number mentioned in the email corresponds to one of your own phone numbers set up in your Fritzbox.
Check whether the attachment in the email has the file extension »wav«.
The company also points out that you should ignore such messages anyway if you have not activated the router's push service at all. This is exactly what is likely to apply to the majority of users. Finally, the said push service must be configured manually in the device's settings.
This in turn requires that you enter
various data
in the
Telephony /
Answering Machine
/ Settings / Messages
area in the Fritzbox user interface, which can be called up in the web browser by entering fritz.box and the password
. Among other things, the configuration of the so-called SMTP server for sending mail is queried here. Many users are likely to be overwhelmed by this. In addition, it is questionable whether you really want to receive every message that is recorded while you are not at home by e-mail.
So if you hear for the first time today that your Fritzbox can do something like that, you should follow the advice of AVM and delete alleged messages from the answering machine in the mailbox.
However, if you have actually activated the function, you should check every new message from the Fritzbox according to the criteria mentioned above - or simply switch the function off until AVM gives the all-clear.
mak
