14 DAY TRIAL // Ali Mohamed Kdoud, an email scammer investigated by the Interpol, was finally arrested in an airport in Larnaca, a city on the east coast of Cyprus. According to Sophos, the man got no less than $10 million after it tricked people into disclosing their financial information. Usually, his attacks were based on email messages that informed potential victims about a lottery prize. "Lucky Winner," one of the email that subjects used in the scam read. The receivers were informed that they won a lottery prize, and in order to get more information about the prize, they had to provide some details. Among the info, the consumers were also asked about their bank accounts. Once he got the private information, the could begin stealing the money, Sophos continued.
"We are seeing more and more scammers like this one be arrested, and it is high time that they pay the price for their greed," said Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos.
"How many victims must have been conned for this thief to net USD $10 million? Let this serve as a wake up call for all computer users - before you start dreaming of spending the rest of your days lazing on a beach somewhere, make sure you verify all unsolicited emails for authenticity before replying. Otherwise, you might find yourself light in the pockets, not to mention frustrated that you got duped by one of the oldest scams in the book - fraud", he added.
That's why it's always recommended to ignore messages coming from untrusted sources, as many of them aim to steal users' information and get their money. Such lottery scams were conducted in the past by several attackers, many of them affecting both Google and Yahoo users. At that time, the Sunnyvale and the Mountain View company released public statements advising the users to ignore these messages and mark them as spam.