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Swedish Netizens Receive Fresh Phishing E-mail

A fresh phishing scam is targeting Swede nationals, revolving around the traditional association between the US State of Minnesota and Sweden. Thelocal.se reported this on February 8, 2011.

Actually, between the middle of 1800s and the beginning of 1900s, numerous of the over 1m Swedes who went over to USA stayed on in Minnesota. Indeed, according to one new US demographic statistic, almost 10% of the people residing in Minnesota are originally Swedish.

Meanwhile, in the Swedish-language based phishing electronic mails, the writer appears to be the highest-ranking legal officer of Minnesota namely Attorney General (AG) Lori Swanson. States the Office of Swanson, the fake messages assert that there's property or money waiting for the recipient to inherit from an anonymous family relation who lately died in Minnesota.

Thereafter, the messages entreat recipients for taking the said inheritance into their custody by getting in touch with a lawyer based in UK.

But, the AG's Office advises anybody getting the scam message to inform FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation).

Meanwhile, no report has been made hitherto of anyone falling victim to the scam although according to security specialists, it doesn't essentially imply that there's actually no one who's been victimized.

The specialists outline that cyber-criminals execute inheritance scams after acquiring e-mail lists that contain the names and ids of recipients. Subsequently, they craft bulk e-mails using those lists, explaining the way a supposed person having the identical surname of the recipient passed away devoid of heirs, often very far off from the recipient's country, just like it's been reported in the above instance.

Therefore, anyone who responds to any of these messages will likely become trapped in an "advance fee" scam wherein the scammer would try to persuade him for wiring money to cover bribes, lawyer's fee, or other costs so the person may get the alleged inheritance wealth.

Hence, security specialists caution against replying to these e-mails since the scammers behind them will attempt at snatching the recipient's private details for committing identity, bank or credit card fraud.

Eventually, Internet-users receiving the above phishing messages are urged to delete the e-mails instantly.

Related article: Stock Spamming On the Rise

» SPAMfighter News - 2/16/2011

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