GoDaddy Phished Its Own Employees Under The Guise Of Giving Them A $650 Holiday Bonus
GoDaddy Phished Its Own Employees Under The Guise Of Giving Them A $650 Holiday Bonus
BY TYLER DURDEN FRIDAY,
DEC 25, 2020 - 18:00
Roughly 500 GoDaddy employees failed a company-wide phishing
test this month that was disguised as a message that they would be receiving a
$650 holiday bonus.
Yes, you're reading that right: GoDaddy purposely emailed its employees during a year in which the U.S. economy went into recession, promising them $650 for the holidays, as a test to see if they would click certain links embedded in emails.
The e-mail came from an address called "happyholiday@godaddy.com", the e-mail
read: “Though we cannot celebrate together during our annual Holiday Party, we
want to show our appreciation and share a $650 one-time Holiday bonus! To
ensure that you receive your one-time bonus in time for the Holidays, please
select your location and fill in the details by Friday, December 18th.”
But instead of a bonus, those who thought they were getting
extra cash instead got the following message two days later: “You’re
getting this email because you failed our recent phishing test. You will need
to retake the Security Awareness Social Engineering training.”
The e-mail came from a GoDaddy domain name and bore the GoDaddy logo. The company says that "roughly 500" people clicked on the link and "failed the test", according to The Copper Courier.
While the test is similar to ones that other companies use to
gauge how susceptible their employees are to phishing attacks, the holiday
theme and promise of money during a tough year makes these tests, in
particular, a little - well...uncool.
While the company refused requests from media about the
incident, the Courier says that "three GoDaddy
employees" forwarded the e-mails to the press. We're guessing the company
is going to have to make a statement - or least make these people whole after
completing their new training - before the "woke" mob decides to
"cancel" their GoDaddy services this holiday season.
GoDaddy is likely on its guard after suffering a data breach
either this year where 28,000 customers saw their accounts compromised. The
company had "record customer growth" for the year, but still wound up
laying off or reassigning "hundreds of employees" due to the
pandemic.
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