Spam Alert: Head of Account Dept
Spam Alert: Head of Account Dept
A new email threat has begun circulating.
Please read the following important information carefully. Emails such as
this are a poorly disguised attempt to take advantage of trusting computer
users. When sufficient emails of this type are broadcast, the spammer
can expect some naive responses. It's referred to as a 'numbers game' : large volumes
of spam
are sent out every day with the intention fooling just a few people.
Be like Roger Daltrey: don't get fooled again.
Subject: Head of Account
Text: Greetings
I'm Mr. Tomo Sand Nori Head of Account Dept, Tokyo Mitsubishi Bank,Japan.
I have a bussiness proposal of $40 million united states dollars for you. If int rested Contact me via my email: tomo2010@w.cn
Origin: IP Address 124.13.124.170, Malaysia
Threat Level: Email harvesting for probable identify theft and additional spam generation.
Attachment: None
Exposure:
Responding to the email will provide your contact information to the
spammer, which may or may not be legitimate. Clicking on the Reply button will generate a response to the email address "tomosandnori2@gala.net".
Pragmatism:
The Tokyo Mitsubishi Bank may be a legitimate company, but they would not solicit business partners this way. The contact address in the body of the email, tomo2010@w.cn, is a domain that does not exist (w.cn). A
legitimate Mitsubishi contact address would use the Mitsubishi.com domain. The "Reply To" email address is "tomosandnori2@gala.net", which is a domain registered to a mailing address in Simsbury, Connecticut.The Reply To address is concealed; it does not appear in the body of the message. The email address "susanna.cameriere@fastwebnet.it" appears when the message is opened for reading. This address appears to be from an Italian domain ("it"), but it cannot be verified.
Note that the word "Interested" is misspelled as "int rested" in the body of the message.
The email contains no specific information regarding the recipient. Certainly the Mitsubishi corporation would not blindly solicit participants in 40 million dollar deals from all corners of the world.
Strategy:
- Delete the email.
- Never respond to this type of email. Never give out contact info, social
security numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, or any other
private or personal information to an untrusted web site or email sender. Simply responding to the message confirms to the recipient that you actually exist.
- Never open attachments from unrecognized senders.
- Never forward any attachments from unrecognized senders.
