UK Man Trapped in E-mail Fraud

A phishing e-mail scam has recently victimized a man in the UK. The person is now trying to alert other people against the scam.

Actually, an e-mail arrived in Robert Brown's mailbox saying it was from the Internet giant 'Yahoo,' as reported by Greenocktelegraph on January 20, 2010. Directing Brown that he needs to confirm personal information, the e-mail threatened that failure to comply could result in the termination of his account.

Since the logo of Yahoo appearing authentic in the e-mail, Brown proceeded to furnish his personal details, including password.

Subsequently, the hackers accessed Brown's contact list and distributed spam mails on his behalf to each of the friends whose e-mail IDs were stored in his address book.

The messages stated that Brown was in New York (USA) and robbed of his money. He urgently needed $2,500 so that he could clear a hotel bill.

However, everything stated in the e-mail was false and the message concluding sentence - "Please make it quick" alarmed Brown's friends. Naturally, they called him instantly.

Citing the phishing scam as an example of lucrative attack, Internet security experts remarked that scammers and their malicious campaigns were becoming increasingly creative, convincing and aggressive. Alert end-users might escape their traps, but the innocents were left exploited.

Indeed, phishing e-mails that pose as messages from reputable entities such as Yahoo in the current instance continue to be a disturbing problem for the industry.

Meanwhile, Yahoo outlines certain suggestions so that users can distinguish fake e-mails from the legitimate ones of the e-mail service. The company also states that users should carefully note the domain spellings. Any misspelled domain is a sign of scam. Phishers normally buy that domain name, which looks similar to a real one, Yahoo's security researchers point out.

Finally, if any message asks users to "confirm" their private account details, Yahoo suggests that they should get in touch with the company immediately. Web-links in suspicious e-mails shouldn't be clicked; instead their addresses should be typed into the browser for accessing the sites.

Related article: US Passes Baton to Asia in Spam Relay

» SPAMfighter News - 1/29/2010