Chris' Scam List: The Out-of-Office Phish Story

Why Chris’s Holiday Auto-Reply Triggered a Security Scare

Everyone deserves a break: even Chris.

After months of dealing with office drama (and his boss David Levinson’s general refusal to understand security), Chris finally booked a trip abroad.

He packed his bags.
Set his out-of-office reply.
Boarded the plane.
And promptly caused a minor security incident.

Here’s how.

Like many of us, Chris turned on his automatic email response:

Except that email reply went to everyone.
Including the random Gmail account that sent a completely blank email at 2:47 a.m.
And the dodgy-looking domain that’s never interacted with the company before.

And just like that, potential attackers learned:

✅ Chris is away
✅ When he’s back
✅ Who to target in his absence
✅ And who has decision-making authority

Scammers and cybercriminals often send blank emails from fake or compromised accounts just to trigger out-of-office responses.

Why?
Because they’re looking for clues.

All of this can be used to craft a social engineering attack, like a CEO impersonation email, a fake invoice, or a wire transfer request: all timed perfectly for when you're on a beach sipping cocktails

On Monday morning, David Levinson returned to an inbox full of suspicious email traffic and an urgent message from the CIO:

Chris had to explain. David had to listen. And the out-of-office message?
It got a serious overhaul.

At DCT Security, we use real stories like these to teach cybersecurity, because people don’t remember rules. They remember what happened to Chris.

Through our platform goDeep, we help teams understand both the psychology and technology behind common scams and mistakes: from phishing and payment fraud to, yes, even the humble out-of-office reply.

🎥 Check out the Chris’ Scam List series to see how easily these scenarios unfold, and how to stop them before they start.

One click. One email. One holiday away from a scam.

Train smarter. Tell stories. Stay secure.

👉 Learn more at www.dctsecurity.com

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