14 DAY TRIAL // "This is to inform you that you have been selected for a cash prize of 950,000,000 Euros ad a brand new BMW 5 Series car from international programs held today in Amsterdam the Netherlands." This is the beginning of a mass-spammed lottery scam message. Of course BMW is only a victim in all this and that the auto brand is used as incentive in a social engineering scheme designed to convince users to hand over their confidential data.
"Few people would say no to a free BMW, or a huge wad of cash for that matter, which is precisely why these lottery scams are proving so successful," said Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos. "There's little that BMW can do to prevent its name being used in this manner, and email users that take the bait risk handing over their personal details to fraudsters. The only way to stop the distribution of these messages is for users to stop responding."
There are two possible scenarios related to this scam. The one with the less impact involves a scam to harvest authentic email addresses that will eventually be used in additional spam campaigns. But in the worst case scenario, this could lead to 419 Advanced Fee Fraud, the victims being tricked into revealing confidential banking information.