Gmail Account of New Zealand’s Popular Singer Hacked

Renowned singer and actress, Maura Flower (of Matakohe, Northland, New Zealand) was recently scammed by cyber offenders.

The entire story started with an e-mail received by her, which purported to be coming from the Internet service provider of her Gmail account. The e-mail message asked her to reveal her account details. The singer has three e-mail accounts, one personal and rest two for professional purposes, reported The Northern Advocate on September 21, 2009.

As the e-mail appeared genuine, Flower typed in her e-mail account number alongwith password and other requisite details, as requested in the mail.

However, on September 16, 2009, Flower noticed that all her incoming e-mails had been hijacked and thrown directly into trash, according to the news published by The Northern Advocate on September 21, 2009.

After this she started getting calls from around 400 people listed on her contact list, as they had got e-mail asking them to wire money to Flower in London.

To completely convince the Flower's contacts, text of the forged e-mail stated that she had lost her wallet while attending a seminar in London. It urged recipients to send $2800 loan via Western Union Money Transfer to a London address so that she could pay her hotel bills and return home.

Flower stated that she continued responding to calls from her worried friends. However, to save others from falling in this trap, she is trying to restore her contact list so that she could inform people about this e-mail scam.

Meanwhile, this e-mail scam, better known as "London Scam", is the most recent among 419 scams, used by hackers to trick innocent Internet users, like in this case. Security experts stated that these scams are named after the related section of the Nigerian penal code, where several scams evolved.

Moreover, security experts have analyzed that in the past few years, hacking has become a severe problem worldwide, with these scam developers attacking personal e-mail accounts of netizens, and then sending spoof emails to the user's contacts, claiming to be on behalf of the user.

Hence, security experts strongly have advised netizens to be cautious while operating their e-mails accounts, particularly those having their accounts with Gmail.

Related article: Gmail Users at the Mercy of Firefox Exploit

» SPAMfighter News - 10/12/2009