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E-Mail Fraudsters Widely Executing Personalized Assaults

Security researchers have found that during the recent months, there has been a worldwide increase in targeted e-mail attacks against individuals as well as their contacts. In fact, their observation proves correct following instances of two women recently targeted with personalized spam e-mails.

In one of the cases, a businesswoman named Michele Hemmings from Wagga (New South Wales, Australia) had been conned. The fraudsters hacked into her e-mail account and distributed a fake message to everyone she had listed on her address book.

The e-mail said that Hemmings was robbed while she was going to her Hotel after attending a session, thereby losing all her valuables and money. Further, the Hotel Management held her passport and belongings pending clearance of her bills. Typically, the message then requested for a $3,500 loan so that she could pay the hotel bills and return home, reported dailyadvertiser.com on January 13, 2010.

The e-mail also supplied details like name, address, name of the business and designation almost completely accurately.

However, Hemmings, who remained unscathed, sent out a warning to all those who might have received the e-mail, saying that they must ignore it.

In the second instance, the personalized e-mail targeted Kay Azuma, a woman from Cape Girardeau, Missouri (US). That e-mail too narrated a more-or-less same story, except that the sum of money asked for was different.

Thus, following these events, specialists on Internet security suggest netizens to maintain vigilance and also remain speculative about incoming e-mails. They also point out that majority of cyber-criminals aren't basically English-speaking. Consequently, a major evidence of whether an e-mail is genuine or otherwise is its writing pattern as it can provide important clues regarding e-mails's authenticity since scammers conventionally take help of translating tools to construct an e-mail's content that is spoofed.

Moreover, the specialists recommend users to set sturdy passwords so that they're hard to unravel. Accordingly, a large diversity of characters for a password is advisable. Besides, users must always keep their passwords secret.

Finally, if anyone thinks that a scam has victimized him, he must immediately contact the relevant officials so that the scammers can be traced.

Related article: E-Crime Reporting Format To Be Launched in July

» SPAMfighter News - 1/22/2010

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