Manchester Mayor's Hacked Account Delivered 650, 000 Spam E-mails

A Thanksgiving Day e-mail, which was actually a spam, was sent to thousand of people from Frank Guinta, the Mayor of Manchester (USA).

According to some reports, someone hacked Frank's e-mail account and used it to send fake e-mails. Over a time span of 12-24 hours, more than 650,000 spam messages were sent from the hacked account.

The Mayor said that many people, who contacted him, informed him about the received e-mail. One of them said that this was like a spam e-mail, but he didn't get further details, according to a statement published by myfoxboston on November 28, 2009.

Guinta added that the incident created a lot of concerns for him. It is the first time that such a thing has occurred. He believes that he is the only person targeted because apart from being a mayor, he is a congressional candidate also.

To prevent such illegal access, the city is equipped with good firewall protection but this incident has shocked the mayor. However, he is contented with the fact that the matter is seriously treated by the police. He is looking forward to the investigations' results which are expected to come in the first week of December.

While the mayor is contented with ongoing investigations, this security breach depicts real picture of the city's so-called secured system. Illegal access to a computer network or an individual system is an offence, as per the laws underlying cybercrime.

Gerald Lessard, Police Captain, told that the computer crime experts of the department were working on the case, but the origin of hack had not yet been known, as per the statement published by unoinleader on November 28, 2009.

The hack could have been launched from some other country. The police are also looking for public's help to identify suspects. Thus, they are asking to call at the detective division if anyone knows about the spam e-mail.

If users find that their account has been hacked or even for preventive measures, they should install security software. A password must contain at least 8 characters because it is difficult to hack them. A user may also use 1 rather than L, $ instead of S, or include the % and & symbols. The most obvious suggestion is not to reveal password to any one.

Related article: Manchester Bishop’s E-mail Server Infected by Virus

» SPAMfighter News - 12/5/2009