You Won $800.000! Yahoo! Mail Congratulates You!

Yahoo Mail is definitely the most popular mail solution on the Internet but sometimes, this good thing is quickly turned into a bad thing. For example, a recent spam campaign that affects the Yahoo Mail accounts informs the users about $800,000 award that they had just won. "Yahoo! Mail gives members random cash prizes. Today, your account is randomly selected as the one of 5 top winners accounts who will get cash prizes from us. We are happy to inform you that you have won a prize money of (Eight Hundred Thousand Us Dollars ($800,000) for the month of July, 2007. Lottery win promotion which is organized by yahoo messenger .com every month," the message says.

The message is quite weird because it is written in a strange way with numerous typos and spelling mistakes. This is an evident proof that this message was not sent by the Sunnyvale company although the email is signed by "Dr WILLIAM GERRI LOTTO CO-ORDINATOR. The Yahoo.com staff."

What's most dangerous about this message is that some naive users might be tricked and, according to the "how to claim your prize" part of the email, they may send private information such as full name, address, phone number and other details to a malicious email address.

The last part of the email is the one that is very close to reality, being written in a very official way that might trick numerous users. "For security reasons, we advice all winners to keep this information confidential from the public until your claim is processed and your prize released to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted taking advantage of this programme by non-participant or unofficial personnel."

I guess I cannot receive the prize anymore because I had just made this email public... Oops...