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E-Mail Spammers Using Fake News for Scams

by Tim Stevens on July 22, 2008 at 02:06 PM

Fake News Coming to a Spam Near You
It's all fun and games when something like 'The Daily Show' or a site like The Onion picks on the world, creating fake news for the sake of humor. When spammers and phishers do it, though, it's not quite so funny, but that's exactly what these slimy e-mail predators have been up to lately by using sensationalist fake news headlines to try to get you to install their sleazy applications and divulge information about yourself.

The e-mail messages have subject lines like "Barack Obama pulls out from Presidential Race" or "Heath Ledger awarded posthumous Oscar," which are a bit of a change from their usual tact of offering free sexual enhancing drugs. The senders, of course, hope that you'll be intrigued enough by the messages to click on the links within and then enter your personal information. Once they have that the people who send these messages are just a few clicks away from stealing your identity. Clicking the links could also install a trojan horse application, turning your computer into a pawn to send more spam e-mails to more people! So, as always, be careful what you click on. [Source: USA Today]

More on the latest e-mail scams to watch out for here.

Tags: breaking news, BreakingNews, e-mail, e-mail scams, E-mailScams, phishing, scams, security, spam

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