Sunday, September 11, 2011

Email phishing - does anyone still fall for these? #SPAM

Got this email this AM

from Western Union st104624@ait.ac.th
reply-to westernunion.organization@yahoo.com.hk
to date Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 4:02 AM
subject Dear Customer.
mailed-by ait.ac.th
hide details 4:02 AM (2 hours ago)

Dear Esteemed Customer,
You have been awarded with the sum of $50,000.00 US Dollars
by our office, as one of our customers who use Western
Union in their daily business transaction.
This award was been selected through the internet, where
your e-mail address was indicated and notified. Please
provide Mr. David Palmer with the following details
listed below so that your fund will be remitted to you
through Western Union immediately.
* Full Name:
* Sex: Age:
* Martial Status:
* Nationality:
* Country:
* Direct Address:
* Mobile Number:
* Office Number:
* Occupation:
Just wondering - does anyone still fall for this type of phishing.  I mean, some phishing attempts out there are subtle and tricky.   This one, however, is not.  Anyone know - do these really obvious ones ever work?  Or are they just part of the "chatter" that eventually will disappear by natural selection of phishing strategies?

4 comments:

  1. FWIW our university's IT department still frequently has to lock accounts and reset passwords every time a similar one as these pops up. Worse, they're often "localized" by running them through google translate. So it doesn't even read like official communication.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, I can see how some creative one's might spoof some people ... but some of them out there are incredibly lame ... like this one ... I just cannot imagine anyone falling for it ...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Back when they did these scams by phone, the victims were usually elderly people...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Morgan - I should have been clearer. I know some of these scams work. What I was wondering was - are there ones out there that don't work at all? That is, have an effective fitness of zero?

    ReplyDelete

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