About:
The messages start with what sounds like an old friend finding the recipient’s contact information after a long disconnect. The "old friend" then mentions their new email address, which is of course different from the source email address, and then asks the recipient to contact them when they have time.
Sample message:
I just found your profile on the net and couldn't belive it's you :) I haven't see you for ages! How are you doing? Here's my new email:
<redacted>@hotmail.com please drop me a line when you have a time
cheers
This campaign is being launched by bots all over the world and uses various source email addresses to prevent IP or email filtering. For the most part, the spammers managed to keep the names consistent in the email headers:
lara <lara62@<redacted>.net>
Not always though:
stevie <kristy19@<redacted>.net>
While the campaign uses different subject lines, there aren't many variations:
liked your profile
wanna chat?
hello
RE:
hi there
Since this is the first email in what is undoubtedly a scam, the spammer tries to establish trust first before moving on to asking the recipient for money to send them naughty pictures/help them escape from some foreign country/send them pills. As always, never send money to people you met through email only.
As of the time of this writing, this spam campaign is still going strong. While we applaud the spammers' attempt to reconnect old friends, we suggest you use other methods.