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Cyber Criminals Hacked E-mail Account of Acton Resident

Jim Aikman, an Acton (Indiana, US) resident, turned out the latest target of online scammers on June 30, 2010 when his quiet life was ruthlessly disturbed.

Actually, someone hijacked Aikman's e-mail account and used it to dispatch a message in poor English for a wire-transfer of 1,300 Euros in his name so that Aikman may pay hotel bills and return home from Spain.

The reports state that this e-mail, which was phony, apparently reached some 2,500 business and personal e-mail addresses enlisted in Aikman's contact list.

On getting the fake e-mails, Aikman's worried friends rang him up to enquire whether everything was alright. They even asked as to where they should wire him the money.

But Aikman says while he has been to a few countries, he has never been to Spain, as reported by Wthr on July 3, 2010.

Abigail Kuzma, Director of Indiana Consumer Protection, stated that it and similar kinds of scams were still quite unusual. Hence, there was a need to remain watchful, she continued, as reported by Wthr on July 3, 2010.

According to Kuzma, whenever an e-mail requests to wire cash at some place, one should become alert and know that it is false.

Indeed, the frequency of these scams is so large that FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) had to issue a warning lately.

A notification placed on its website stated that the 'Internet Crime Complaint Center' still got reports about people having their social-networking or e-mail accounts hijacked for a scam involving social engineering that defrauded them off huge sums of dollars, as reported by Suburbanchicagonews on July 7, 2010.

The notification added that if anyone got a message resembling the above kind and didn't know if it was real, he should first check the information prior to remitting any cash.

Meanwhile, security researchers state that this most recent stranded tourist appeal represents a fresh variation of a scam e-mail which emerged for the first time during 2006. According to them, these sorts of scams continue to be successful as they exploit people's good nature by asking them to decide fast.

Related article: Cyber Child abuser Sentenced To Imprisonment

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