Dumbest phisher in history revealed
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Blog, phishing, Spam, Security, email, Internet on
Look, like most people I get a lot of spam and a fair amount of it would fall into the phishing scam category I guess. Quite apart from the stuff that has not been sent to one of my email accounts, I also get to see stuff forwarded to me by concerned readers of magazines or websites to which I contribute. A little hint, there is no point sending me copies of your spam so please stop it. The only exclusion being when you have a real news story to throw in my direction, and ‘look at this spam’ is not it.
Anyway, the point of this posting is that it really takes a lot to stand out amongst the phishing crowd these days. Much of it is very sophisticated, using every technique possible to obfuscate the real sender address. Much of it comes in HTML format with the body painstakingly copied from an authentic bank or business communication: branding, logos and house style copied to the last dot. Much of it is very believable, after all that is the whole point of a phishing scam, you have to reel your mark in, make them believe to bite and get caught on your fraudulent hook.
Which is why I just had to ignore my own ‘don’t forward your spam’ advice and share this message from what has to be a candidate for the dumbest phisher in history award.
What you won’t see here is the Japanese script which was left intact at the top of the HTML format email, something of a clue that the letter might not be from Dr Mike Ellis, Group Finance Director of the Halifax bank of Scotland after all. As, indeed, is the free webmail @yahoo.co.jp Japanese return address.
And that is quite before we get to the bit about him happening to find a dormant account in his office, containing £15 million, and for some reason wanting to make a business arrangement with me so that we can share it. Not that ‘Dr Mike’ actually says what he has in mind, nor even that I should contact him about it. I guess he assumes I am smart enough to know a good thing when I see it and compose that eager response.
Do you think I should reply?
mkellis111@yahoo.co.jp
Good day to you,
I am Dr. Mike Ellis, Group Finance Director Halifax Bank of Scotland, I
have urgent and very confidential business proposition for you. I
discovered a dormant account in my office, worth 15,000,000 million
pounds.
- Dr Mike Ellis
Rated: 60% (2 votes)
Loading ...Comment by b - June 21, 2008 on 1:52 pm
You should reply to tell him you also have a dormant account in your office, but yours is worth 16,000,000 pounds, so you win, nyah-nyah-nyah.
Comment by Peter Dunkley - June 22, 2008 on 12:57 pm
That’s the beauty of phishing - it’s a numbers game. No matter how dumb the spammers - there’s always someone more stupid out there
Comment by Davey Winder - June 22, 2008 on 1:29 pm
Ain’t that the truth. I know someone who bought a fake Rolex from a spammed ad and was actually surprised it was a piece of crap because “I paid £300 for that.”
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