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Online Scammers Hacked E-mail Account of Tumut Mayor

Trina Thomson, Mayor of Tumut (New South Wales, Australia), has issued an alert after an e-mail scam targeted her. The e-mail scam left many individuals worried about her safety, as reported by Dailyadvertiser on July 9, 2010.

Over 100 contacts on Mrs. Thomson's address book were e-mailed requesting for assistance. Actually, it was written in the e-mail that during a vacation trip to England, Mrs. Thomson lost her moneybag. Consequently, she couldn't clear her accommodation charges and pay her return journey. Following the receipt of this e-mail, one of Mrs. Thomson's friends even rang her up offering to send the money she needed for the trip home.

But Mrs. Thomson didn't at all go out of Australia at the time the fraud electronic mail circulated. Although she is worried about concern created by the e-mail, she is puzzled about the way her account on Yahoo e-mail can be restored.

Mrs. Thomson stated that she wouldn't have given away her password in response to an e-mail, which seemed as though it had been sent from Yahoo whose e-mail service she used. However, she admitted that the e-mail sounded real, but it had a few grammatical mistakes.

Meanwhile, the particular e-mail scam is one more form of the globally widespread 'Nigerian scam,' which according to the security researchers, has been in existence for many years.

Furthermore, it isn't merely Yahoo - the free web-mail service - targeted by the scammers. Twitter, Facebook and similar social-networking websites too have become a much preferred medium for executing such phishing e-mail campaigns.

To remain safe, security specialists advise Internet users to send any e-mail they doubt to be a fraud message to the relevant officials before erasing it completely. Nevertheless, in case an end-user has already sent the information asked in reply to such an e-mail, he should report the incident to the security firm to facilitate the tracing of the associated fraudsters.

Lastly, it is always good to deploy a high quality filter that blocks a scam e-mail right when it tries to make for the inbox.

Related article: Online Card Fraud Shows Greater Tendency Than Chip and Pin

» SPAMfighter News - 7/20/2010

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