Just got back in after some time playing around Veteran’s Day and had 2 email harvesting scam contacts waiting for me… one on a Gmail chat and one on Facebook.
Both were similiar … saying my photo was on a site or I’d been tagged in a photo. These were from people I don’t normally contact but who would be able to contact me via email or facebook.
People are paying for harvested emails these days it seems. I guess if this article in the Guardian is correct.
Basically there’s an “MLM” network for harvesting email names. You earn 5 cents per name plus a % of whatever your recruits earn. That is if you can really trust spammers to pay you!
When you get the spam, you wonder “What the HECK?”
You go there, see fuzzy images and the goal is to get as many emails out of you as possible and, if possible, access your online accounts for more spam addresses.
I received one from a known MLMer who boasts about having “multiple streams of income”. I’d like to think her account was hacked. But the more I think about it, this person was probably just trying to con me for a nickel!
Here’s how one expert quoted in the above article viewed this:
This Picture scam is … where people are misled into believing that photos of them or belonging to them have been uploaded onto a public website. In order to see those pictures they are asked to enter their email address. Worryingly, as they step though the process to gain access to these non-existent photos, users are also asked to create a password. This neat little social engineering trick is relying on users’ habit of using common passwords, now the cybercriminal has your email and your password. It’s payday.”
No comments yet.