A great study that shows the challenges faced by fraudsters

Jun 20, 2012 08:59 GMT  ·  By

Nigerian scams, or 419 scams (419 is the number of a section in Nigeria’s criminal code), are encountered almost daily by most internauts and we can safely argue that by now a large percentage of users are able to identify and avoid them.

However, according to Microsoft researchers, there’s a perfectly good explanation to why the fraudsters keep telling their potential victims that they’re from Nigeria, instead of changing tactics.

In a paper entitled Why do Nigerian Scammers Say They are from Nigeria?, Cormac Herley from Microsoft Research explains that the crooks invent stories that are clearly ludicrous to filter out users who may catch on to their schemes.

Basically they eliminate false positives - individuals who are unlikely to fall for the scam - and remain only with the true positives, represented by users who are gullible enough to believe that the story may actually be real.

“Far-fetched tales of West African riches strike most as comical. Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor,” Herley explains.

Furthermore, he details the fact that the scam attacks launched by Nigerian con artists are not free as one might expect.

While the large number of emails they send out are in fact free, the process of actually obtaining the money can be highly difficult and costly.

“For example, each respondent to a Nigerian 419 email requires a large amount of interaction, as does the Facebook ‘stuck in London scam.’ Credentials may be stolen by the millions, but emptying bank accounts requires recruiting and managing mules,” the researcher added.

“The endgame of many attacks require per-target effort. Thus when cost is non-zero each potential target represents an investment decision to an attacker. He invests effort in the hopes of payoff, but this decision is never flawless.”

So, there you have it, a perfectly plausible scientific explanation as to why Nigerian scammers say they’re from Nigeria.