14 DAY TRIAL // The personal email account of Tennessee State Senator Mae Beavers has been compromised by unknown attackers and was used to send scam messages to all of her contacts.
Senator Beavers learned of the security breach when she started receiving calls from people about strange emails she allegedly sent.
The rogue messages claimed that she was stranded in London after her purse and credit cards were stolen and asked for a loan to help her get back home.
Such emails are part of so called 419 or advance-fee scams and this particular lure is a common one known as the "stranded traveler."
These messages have been going around for years and as it turns out, Mrs. Beavers is not even the first senator to have this scam perpetrated in their name.
Back in July, we reported about Iowa State Senator Bob Dvorsky's email account being hacked and misused in a very similar fashion.
The message sent from Mr. Dvorsky's mailbox informed his friends that he was stranded in Scotland after loosing his wallet.
It asked for a £10,000 loan in order to settle the hotel bills and pay for travel arrangements back to the States.
WSMV reports that after learning of the fake emails sent from her address, Senator Beavers sent a legitimate one advising everyone that her Gmail account was hacked into.
She also contacted the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, but offered no indication publicly as to how the compromise might have happened.
There are a variety of methods hackers can use to gain access to email accounts. For example, in Senator Dvorsky's case, they used a phishing email crafted to appear as if it was sent by a Yahoo! representative.
Mrs. Beavers has served in the Tennessee General Assembly as a state representative between 1994 and 2004 and as a senator from 2002 to this day. She chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and also sits on the Senate Commerce Committee and the Senate Transportation Committee.