Security news11 January 2007
Scam contract killer email blackmails recipients with death threat Assassination email may put vulnerable internet users at risk
Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have warned of a spammed-out email that pretends to come from a professional hitman, hired to kill the recipient, but are really interested in stealing money.
The emails claim that the recipient has been stalked by a hired assassin for 10 days, but that the hitman is prepared to drop the contract if he is paid a total of $80,000. Upon receiving an initial advance payment of $20,000 the hitman claims that he will produce taped evidence of the contract to kill the reader of the email.
Part of the email, which start with a cheery greeting of "Good day" and can have a subject line of "Read this to be safe and a new life in this new year", reads:
According to Sophos experts, once a victim has been drawn into the scam, requests can be made from the fraudster for private information which may lead to requests for money, stolen identities, and financial theft.
The email claims to come from a professional assassin.
"This is surely one of the sickest phishes yet seen - the intention of this email is quite clearly to frighten the recipient into coughing up a substantial amount of money or, at the very least, their bank account details," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "Innocent, vulnerable people could be scared into believing that the contents of the email are truthful, while the not-so-innocent are arguably even more likely to be hoodwinked. It may be hugely unnerving to receive such threats, but the only way to stop the distribution of these messages is for users to stop responding."
Sophos continues to recommend that all organizations protect their email with an integrated security solution to thwart spam, spyware and malware threats.
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About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.
