Fergie's Tech Blog

E-Mail Scammers to Victims: Pay Up or Die

Jaikumar Vijayan writes on NetworkWorld:

A new wave of extortion e-mails that threaten recipients with bodily harm and death if they do not pay thousands of dollars to the sender is circulating on the Internet, according to security vendor SecureWorks.

The e-mails are sent directly to the victims from valid e-mail accounts instead of the usual spam relays and bot proxies -- an apparent attempt to make them seem authentic. The accounts are set up by scammers purporting to be assassins hired by third parties to harm the recipients. The sender offers to spare the recipient from harm in return for thousands of dollars.

posted by Fergie @ 4/24/2007 05:51:00 PM