E-mail Scam Targets Ithaca City Employee

After receiving e-mails supposedly from a city staffer-City of Ithaca, New York, phone calls flooded Ithaca City Hall (New York, USA) on April 8, 2010.

The recipients, in this vicious e-mail, were told that the employee who was in England, lost all the valuables he had. This employee was allegedly asking the recipients to grant him a loan of 2,760 Pounds in order to settle the hotel bills and return home, as reported by themorningsun.com on April 11, 2010.

Pointless to state, this city staffer was not in England and did not require any funds. His e-mail account had been taken over.

As a matter of fact, the fake e-mail asked the recipients to keep it completely confidential by not leaking it or disclosing it to others, as the staffer was much embarrassed of the incident.

Worryingly, this type of e-mail scam has just not disturbed the Ithaca staffer. Near about two years back in 2008, a business man from Alma, Michigan, also experienced the similar thing.

Indeed, this scam has been making rounds since as early as 2007. Sometimes, the e-mails contain the name of different countries.

At present, they appear to be increasing worldwide because people from all around the world are using Internet, and similarly, scammers are becoming ever more sophisticated and advanced in approach, and their deceitful tricks are increasing. The con artists are very cunning; they very well know how to give a legitimate feel and look to their e-mails.

As a result, while commenting on the issue, security experts said that users must protect themselves from falling prey to a scam. If they follow some steps, they can surely prevent themselves from being victimized to such assaults. First and foremost, it is a must to change passwords and clues to retrieve them at regular intervals. This habit of changing passwords regularly will ascertain that by the time a hacker decodes your old password you are already using a new password, and hence he has to start again.

On a concluding note, the security experts added that to avoid such attacks, the best key is that the users must install Internet security software on their systems.

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

» SPAMfighter News - 4/24/2010