14 DAY TRIAL // The world is still terrified by the earthquake which shook down China on May 12 and scammers, hackers and phishers still want to take advantage of this. Another scam was detected by security company Sophos under the form of a 419 email which asks readers for their money. The only difference from a traditional 419 scam is that this time, the sender asks for money in order to go to China and look for his wife.
"I do not know your exact name. I can only guess. I ask you to read through my letter up to the end. And still, if you will be able to help me I shall consider you to be the best man in this world. You will save a life of mine Jin. I shall write the data on which I will be able to receive cashes in Philippines through Western Union," a scrap of the email reads.
As you know, several other scams could be seen these days on the web, most of them being somehow related to the Chinese earthquake. If in some cases the hackers attempted to break into the Red Cross servers and steal donations, some other attackers relied on news stories through which they attempted to trick people into downloading a malicious Word document which could compromise their computers.
"Spammers and scammers are always ready to jump on the latest disaster or big news headline to try and exploit users. Past examples of similar scams include the Concorde air disaster, the London bombings, and the war in Iraq," Zoe Markham, SophosLabs UK, explains.
There's not much to do with such emails but to delete them. However, extra-care is recommended these days when more and more scams attempt to take advantage of the Chinese tragedy.