I encourage my clients to forward questionable emails to me for analysis to check if they are valid or not. Recently a forwarded email came from a client that she received from someone claiming to be the owner of the firm she works for asking for her cell phone number. Problem was the alleged owner wasn't anyone we knew.
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx xxxxxxxxxx <xxxxxxxxx0029@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2023 8:58 AM
To: xxxxx xxxxxxx <xxxxx@clientemail.com>
Subject:
Hi Xxxxx
I need you to work on a request for me. Send me your cell phone number. I love working with great people.
First LastName
Owner at CompanyName, LLC
Normally, I would have dispelled this as another phishing attempt. However, I knew that this firm had some private investors and decided to Google the name in the email along with the client's company. What I found was a page published on a website of ZoomInfo that listed not only the sender as the owner but also an almost complete list of present and past employees.
The site has the firm's correct address listed but to obtain phone numbers and emails you have accept and download ZoomInfo software which I suspect then looks at your contact list.
I provide an example of the listing they have for Driving Force. I got this listing by googling "driving force software zoominfo". However the example of the client above I found by googling the name of the alleged owner and firm name. ZoomInfo was a the top of the search results.
As you can see below, they've published my phone number and website. They have my NACIS and SIC codes correct. However they list our operations as;
Driving Force Software is a company that operates in the Museums and Institutions industry. It employs 11-20 people and has $1M-$5M of revenue. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
I have checked other clients and the results are astounding. A lot of info about them, some correct and much incorrect.
ZoomInfo employ AI, Artificial Intelligence to scour the web and the following sources;
Unstructured Public Information: ZoomInfo's technologies extract and parse unstructured information found on webpages, newsfeeds, blogs, and other public sources and then match that information with entities it has previously identified.Jan 19, 2023
If you research and find your business on their site, do not download and install their software. I'm not sure but I suspect they will browse your contacts and harvest more info. Instead do the following;
How do I remove my info from ZoomInfo?
Go to https://www.zoominfo.com/privacy-center/update/remove and “Verify” your email address. Check your mailbox and take a note of your 4-digits code. Enter the 4-digits code and click “Confirm” Tick the checkbox next to “I would like to delete my information”, solve the CAPTCHA, and click “REMOVE”Jan 31, 2023
https://www.zoominfo.com/privacy-center/update/remove
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