Hackers Break Into E-Mail of Sathaye Principal
Principal of Ville Parle (Mumbai, India) based Sathaye College, Ms. Kavita Rege recently complained to the cyber-crime department situated in Mumbai's Bandra Kurla Complex following someone who hacked into her e-mail account and subsequently used it for dispatching bulk e-mails to her friends and acquaintances. Dnaindia.com reported this on January 13, 2011.
On January 2, 2011, Ms. Rege got phone-calls from people known to her inquiring of her troubles while touring in Malaysia. Actually, they had got e-mails that appeared to be from Rege's address requesting for $2,000 so she could get out of a trouble she was in. The e-mail also said that the money must be dispatched to one particular account.
Shortly, Rege got some 30 phone-calls wherein her friends and relatives included in her address book asked how she was doing.
Remarking about the event, an officer in the police department stated that Rege wasn't the sole person who was victimized in an Internet phishing scam. Dnaindia.com reported this. According to the officer, rather than reply to the said kind of e-mails, people must find out if the messages were authentic.
Meanwhile, the police department said that several written complaints had come to it about cyber-crime.
Also, security researchers, remarking about the above kind of assault against Rege's e-mail as well as the ensuing incidences, stated that both were simply another version of the Nigerian E-mail Scam. Further, the scam's method of operation was plain while the number of people becoming victimized with it was astonishing. The researchers noted that though a Nigerian Scam had an enormous kind of details as well as other procedures, its fundamental premise had been unchanged ever-since 20 years or so.
Moreover, given that the recent scams are so malicious, security researchers along with cyber-crime officials have recommended residents like Rege that they should safeguard their computers appropriately in order to avoid cyber-criminals and their hacks. Some suggestions by them are: always maintaining anti-virus software up-to-date and in case of a hacking suspicion on an end-user's account, that user should inform his contacts instantly from another ID telling them that a scam could be forthcoming.
Related article: Hackers Redirect Windows Live Search to Malicious Sites
» SPAMfighter News - 24-01-2011