E-mail Account of Labor Councilor Infiltrated

Internet scammers lately hacked into the e-mail account of Geoff Lumley, Isle of Wight's (England) Labor Councilor, as per Iwgazette.co.uk, which reported the news on January 5, 2011.

Incidentally following the hack, the scammers sent a spam mail from Lumley's account to innumerable ids listed on his address book. That e-mail, posing as a message from Lumley, claimed that the Councilor was stranded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It then requested friends for assisting him with money for getting back home since thieves robbed him off his credit cards and passport in Kuala Lumpur. Commonly, the money asked for was 1,550 pounds so he could clear his hotel expenditures as well as buy the return flight ticket.

In fact, in just a few hours that Lumley's contacts got the spam mail, telephone calls began pouring in from them asking Lumley if he was alright. But as it happens in all such cases, Lumley wasn't in Malaysia at all rather at home unharmed.

Saying that the e-mail was indeed sent from his account, Lumley stated that he'd mistakenly answered one e-mail, which appeared so real from Google that directed him for validating his account information. Iwcp.co.uk published this on January 5, 2011.

In addition Lumley stated that Google had assured him that his confidential details hadn't been tampered with. According to him, wonderful though the Internet was, such fraudsters' gangs strived immensely for reaping money out of it through many successful attempts at victimizing people. Iwgazzzete.co.uk reported this.

Remarking about the phishing e-mail scam, security researchers said that it was simply one more case of the Nigerian or advance-fee scam. According to them, netizens must watch out for any incoming e-mail, which requested them for wiring cash no matter whether the message seemed as sent from an acquaintance or friend. Preferably, recipients of such e-mails should verify after contacting the senders of the same before considering sending money. Besides, many people had several e-mail accounts on the Web, therefore they should regularly verify if their Web-mail accounts hadn't been compromised through hacker attacks, while utilize a strong, hard-to-crack password, the researchers advised.

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

» SPAMfighter News - 1/17/2011