The Cost Of Responding To Lame Phishing Attempts
from the got-to-respond dept
Odd timing on this one. I literally had just received a scam email, claiming to be from the FBI, saying that my IP had been logged on 30 different illegal websites, and demanding (with an exclamation point!) that I answer the attached questions. I laughed at this rather lame attempt at either phishing or passing on some kind of malware, deleted it and went back to work... where the first thing I saw was a warning from the FBI saying that these things are going around and they're not at all real. This raises one of the annoying costs not often discussed when it comes to these types of phishing attacks: the effort the original company or organization has to make to assure everyone they're not really involved. The problem is, while most folks around here would recognize such an email immediately as a scam -- there are plenty who wouldn't. Thus, the FBI has to waste time coming out with a response to it and getting the news spread widely.
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It's a variant of the Sober worm...
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Then again, MS isn't kind enough to email 158KB critical updates as they become available. :)
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That raises the question ...
Maybe it's not odd; I just find it curious.
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FBI warning was on national news
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Re: That raises the question ...
The story was picked up by plenty of news organizations. Since a big part of my job is reading the news, I saw it as I was reading the headlines.
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