Spam Mails Crowd on Play.com Customers

Many customers of Play.com, on March 22, 2011, got spam mails purporting to be from the Jersey-situated Internet retailer, thus published Theregister.co.uk in news on March 22, 2011.

The spam sites, reportedly in a big number led onto Black-Hat SEO manipulated web-domains, which pushed malicious software. Consequently, users complained via Internet forums while ideas flashed that either someone compromised Play.com or seized the list of e-mail addresses with the retailer.

Moreover, targeted recipients of the spam mails were certain that there was malware on Play.com that generated e-mails since they utilized an e-mail id that was unique while accessing the website.

Nevertheless, when the situation changed drastically and nastily following the data hack, Play.com said that its marketing associate Silverpop was to be squarely blamed.

It (Play.com) e-mailed to its clients that the e-mail was a notification that a firm, which partly took care of the promotional campaigns of Play.com had encountered an infiltration into its security. Unluckily, it therefore implied that names and electronic mail ids of certain customers might have been hijacked, the website wrote. Eweekeurope.co.uk published this on March 22, 2011.

Regretting the latest incident, John Perkins Chief Executive Officer of Play.com stated that he was sorry for any existing or future trouble to consumers because spam could potentially rise as a result of the current problem. Metro.co.uk published this on March 22, 2011.

Said Vice President Mark Harris of SophosLabs the security company, while remarking about the apologies from Play.com that despite Play.com saying that the security violation happened at Silverpop, eventually it was Play.com itself on whom its client data security depended, hence making it responsible. Eweekeurope.co.uk reported this on March 22, 2011. Meanwhile, risk prevailed in that customers' e-mail ids and names had been posted on junk e-mail lists.

Said Country Manager Ash Patel for Stonesoft another security company, the hackers were currently capable of utilizing the ids as well as sending phishing e-mails to the clients for acquiring details like bank information after tricking them into viewing a malevolent file sent as attachment that might drop Trojans or other viruses on their computers. Eweekeurope.co.uk reported this.

Related article: Spam Scam Bags a Scottish Connection

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