KGB puts JFK secrets up for sale in latest email scam

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Computer users should not be fooled by an email from a supposed dying KGB agent offering to sell them secrets about the assassination of ill-fated President John F Kennedy (JFK), warn security experts.

It is simply a ruse to obtain confidential data and money, particularly from those intrigued by the conspiracy theories surrounding JFK's untimely death, according to threat analysis experts from SophosLabs, part of security vendor SophosSophos.

The email has been spammed to Internet users worldwide. It hints at making the recipient famous by offering to disclose declassified CIA documents, interviews that have never been made public and former KGB files. The sender attempts to pull at recipients' heartstrings by claiming to have a terminal disease.

"You can talk about it with your friends and neighbors. You can write your own shocking book that will have success and bring you fame. You can call in to radio talk shows. You can raise the issues. You can demand answers - not in 50 years or 100 years, but right now, in our lifetime," says the email.

Sophos advises organisations to try and protect against threats like this by beefing up security and updating their corporate virus protection. It suggests that people should put aside their desire to prove a conspiracy theory right to avoid becoming a victim of the scam.

Unfortunately, many are still hungry to find out what actually happened in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963. JFK Reloaded, a game created by developer Traffic Management Ltd, where players can recreate JFK's final moments and assassination, proves the demand - however macabre - is there.

"There is a conspiracy at work here, but it's not about whether someone was lurking on a grassy knoll in Dallas on 22 November 1963," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.

"Internet criminals are conspiring to steal sensitive information and raid the bank accounts of unsuspecting Internet users. If everyone showed the same scepticism to unsolicited emails, as some do to the official investigations into the Kennedy assassination, then maybe less people would end up the victims of a scam."

Email con-tricks continue to be a persistent headache to businesses and consumers alike. Yesterday, IT PRO reported that a man, thought to be the behind a $2 million spam ring, had been arrested by Nigerian authorities in Lagos.

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