E-Mail Scam Makes False Notifications to Steal User Identity

An e-mail scam has stolen the identity of Helen Weir, finance director of Lloyds TSB, according to news from Management consultancy on May 30, 2007. The spurious e-mail uses Weir's name and announces that she seemingly found an account lying dormant but worth $20,00,000 million that Weir desired to transfer abroad.

The e-mail starts by noting that it was strictly confidential and that even Weir's husband was not aware of the risky venture. It continues to say that Weir's family would crumble if the news became public. She would even lose her precious job. Managementconsultancy published this as news on May 30, 2007.

The e-mail invites recipients to provide their contact particulars. However, what number of people has responded to the phishing scam is unknown.

The Internet Revenue Service (IRS) has recently alerted businesses and taxpayers about two serious e-mail scams that could gain complete access over the data in their computers, without prior warnings.

The e-mails have logos and information appearing to be that of Internal Revenue Service. They make false notification to readers that IRS would take action against them and their companies. They then provide links to read on further for more information, but these links secretly plant harmful computer programs. The programs are actually trojans that could disable functions as they directly control the hard drives.

One e-mail pretends to arrive from the IRS criminal investigation unit informing the recipients that a tax investigation was being conducted on them. The other e-mail makes a false notification that a complaint was filed against the recipients.

IRS sent out warnings about the e-mails on May 31, 2007, a day after it learnt about the scam.

Scam e-mails or phishing e-mails purport to be from a legitimate company or bank such as eBay, PayPal, Suntrust, WAMU and so on. They ask for account information like login details citing various reasons. These scams often have the support of fraudulent websites while victims think they are visiting the real site. phishing helps to commit identity theft where criminals steal the user's personal information to get control over their accounts and then misuse them.

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

» SPAMfighter News - 6/15/2007