Fraud: 419 uses real names in spam-scams
Silkscreen Consulting, the leading anti money laundering consultancy, has reported an interesting development in e-mailed 419 spam scams
It has received a 419 e-mail which is a fairly typical spam in terms of content. But there is an interesting twist: it is addressed to a named individual.
Aside from the stupidity of writing to an consultancy dedicated to combatting money laundering with an offer to launder, the discovery is worrying, says Silkscreen who have, since the early 1990s, been alerting those in financial services to the risks of fraud on the internet.
"We always point out the simple fact that people generally believe what they read on a computer screen. And they believe personally addressed junk mail - banks know this because they readily use the technique for personally addressed (although rarely personalised) marketing for loans, credit cards, etc.
So a personally addressed e-mail spam has double the credibility. And therefore more people are likely to be taken in."
Luckily says Silkscreen, the particular e-mail is very badly constructed and therefore less likely to be successful. However, the general trend is for there to be increasing sophistication in each ploy as it is adopted and so it is likely that there will be more sophisticated spam-scams with names added.
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