It´s come to our attention that there is a widespread phishing scam that you may have seen or may receive as it´s doing the rounds of emails in the UK.

The emails appear to be from HM Revenue & Customs advising recipients that they have a tax refund waiting to be paid. There is an attachment or link.

Don´t be fooled  there is definitely no tax refund waiting for you but potentially huge implications of clicking on or opening anything in the email. These are scam emails – HMRC never send out emails of this type.

If you receive an email message that appears to be from HMRC please DO NOT click any of the links it contains and delete it immediately and pass on this warning to anyone in your office or business.

What is phishing? Phishing is the act of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords or credit card by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an email. Communications purporting to be from popular social websites, banks, financial institutions, retailers, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public into revealing personal details. Phishing emails may contain links to websites that are infected with malware (viruses) and often they will direct you to a fake website that looks and feels almost identical to the legitimate one. Email addresses may also on first look seem legitimate but often when you look again are mis-spelt, or have added prefixes.