E-mail Crooks Target Webmail Accounts

[Peaches]

E-Mail Crooks Target Webmail Accounts

A wicked e-mail scheme uses your Webmail address--and your contact list--for scams.

Erik Larkin, PC World

Imagine having to explain an e-mail message that asks your friends for money--a message sent from your Webmail account. (Webmail refers to any e-mail service you use via a Web browser rather than through an e-mail client.) That's exactly what's happening: Scammers are breaking into such ac­­counts and, from those addresses, sending e-mail messages to the victims' entire contact list. The messages often tout a Web site (such as an e-commerce site), or even ask for money directly.

It's a new, dastardly twist on an old scam. Crooks have long used harvested addresses in the ‘From:' field on junk e-mail to make messages look realistic. But because anti­spam measures have been getting better at blocking such spoofed spam, the bad guys are now breaking in and sending e-mail from actual accounts.

Maureen Arnold, a former CPA in Apache Junction, Arizona, was hit by such an attack. When she checked her MSN mail one day, she found several warnings about undeliverable messages sent from her account that she hadn't written, along with messages in her Sent box. The scam e-mail--touting a site selling electronic products--went out to her family and friends. Similar attacks have asked recipients to wire money to a particular account; some have even deleted an account's contact list afterward.

More details at PCworld - http://www.pcworld.com/article/167250/emai...l_accounts.html

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