Spam, Phishing and other funny traps

[Killer Angel]

Gone are the days of the good old nigerian prince.

look what i received today, sent from my own account (BTW, a very similar post was sent also to my wife).

------------------------------

Hello!

I've be͏en watching you for a few months now.

I am a hac͏ker who has access to your operating system.
You may not know me an͏d you are probably wondering why you are getting this email?
The fact is th͏at you were infected with malware through an adult site that you visited.
I also have fu͏ll access to your account
I sent this message from your ac͏count

The ha͏cking was carried out using a h͏ardware vulnerability through which you went online.
When you went online, m͏y exploit downloaded my malicious code to your device.
Since then I have been follo͏wing you!

That is, I ca͏n see absolutely everything that you do, view and download your files and any data to yourself.
I also have access to the camera on your dev͏ice, and I periodically take photos and videos with you.
At the m͏oment, I have harvested a solid di͏rt... on you...
My malw͏are uses the driver, I update its signatures every 3 hours so that your antivirus is silent.
I saved all your email and chats from your me͏ssengers. I also saved the entire history of the sites you visit.
I note that it is useless to change the passwords. My malware update pass͏words from your accounts every times.

I took photos and videos of your mo͏st passionate funs with adult content, and synchronized them in real time with the image of your camera.
I'm sure you don't want to show these files and vis͏iting history to all your contacts.

With one click of the mouse, I can send th͏is video to all your emails and contacts.
If you want to prev͏ent this, transfer the amount of $508 to my bitcoin address
(if you do not kn͏ow how to do this, wri͏te to Google: "Buy Bicoin").
M͏y bitcoin address (BTC Wallet) is: 1FVZHKGS3PNuEc3Sphv73hqfqaNQ1MBmBz

My system automatically recog͏nizes the transfer.
As soon as the specif͏ied amount is received, all your data will be destroyed from my server, and the rootkit will be au͏tomatically removed from your system.

If I find that you have shared this mess͏age with someone else, the video will be immediately distributed.
I advise you to remain prudent and not enga͏ge in nonsense (all files on my server).

You have 48 hours (2 days) t͏o send the payment.
P.S. If you need more time to pa͏y, open your notepad on your device and write '48h more'. Only this way you can contact me.
I have a notice reading this letter, and the timer will work wh͏en you see this letter.


-----------------------------------------------


Of course, my first worries diminished drastically when it was mentioned the "adult site" i visited, vanishing totally with "I also have access to the camera on your dev͏ice". Which is totally cool, as i don't have any camera on my screen.


Who knows, i'm sure that someone could be scaried by such a threat. Let me assure you it's a hollow one, this is just a spoofing.


So, i would say this could be a nice thread to share our funny experience with this new kind of scams.

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

Yeah, I studied Cyber Security as one of my university modules, and stuff like this is familiar to me.

Indeed messages like this can often scare people into doing these things, but that's what these vile people want. If you ignore them, they'll know that it's no use trying to get anything out of you and they'll clear off.

A similar method they'll use is to use messages like this or software that does similar to get people to download software they supply which they have disguised as 'antivirus' or something along those lines - this is called scareware, and again ignoring it is the best defence you have. If you download the package as they tell you to, it's extremely likely that the downloaded content will actually be malware like a virus, worm or even ransomware, so don't be fooled by them.

Common ways of detecting threats like this are inaccuracies in what they think is your behaviour like @Killer Angel mentioned, and also spelling/grammar mistakes (in fact there are a couple of these in the message you've mentioned). Most of these people will be from corrupt countries that are poor at speaking English like Russia and Saharan Africa, so they generally won't be very good with their English. This one is probably one of the more adept ones, but he still left inaccuracies. Threat detection messages from proper software you've installed, by contrast, will generally be in perfect English because the companies who make them have standards to ensure this is enforced, so you should know when you do actually have a problem as opposed to a hoax problem like in this message.

 

[The Red Devil]

That one was not too bad.

Before the summer last year, there were a lot of similar spam emails going out, with the difference that they also included a password they claimed was yours.

The entire list came from previously hacked companies, where they were able to get emails and the password the user had on that system.

I received several emails myself, and all had passwords I had used in the past. I can only imagine that anyone that is not tech-savvy and uses the same password all over the place, could believe the email, and send them money.

 

[ChapterAquila92]

I recently had a few amusing spam emails sent my way, including a "Nigerian prince"-style offer.

Dear,

My name is Mr Tofil Bama, I am the Bill and Exchange (assistant)
Manager of Bank of Africa Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. In my department
I discovered an abandoned sum of eighteen million three hundred
thousand United State of American dollars (18.3MILLION USA DOLLARS)
in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died in
airline that crashed on 4th October 2001.

Since I got information about his death I have been expecting his next
of kin to come over and claim his money because we can not release it
unless somebody applies for it as the next of kin or relation to the
deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines, but unfortunately we
learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside
with him in the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim. It is
therefore upon this discovery that I decided to make this business
proposal to you and release the money to you as next of kin or
relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since
nobody is coming for it and I don't want the money to go into the bank
treasury as unclaimed bill.

You will be entitled with 40% of the total sum while 60% will be for
me after which I will visit your Country to invest my own share when
the fund is successfully transferred into your account, Please I would
like you to keep this transaction confidential and as a top secret as
you may wish to know that I am a bank official.

Yours sincerely,
Mr Tofil Bama.

There was also one from a supposed Eastern European software developer (Ukraine/Russia) that supposedly specializes in "minimal value products".

Good afternoon
We are a software development team from Ukraine and Russia. Our specialization is development of MVP (MVP is a minimal value product). It allows you to present any of your ideas into the form of ready software system for starting sales or the involvement of investors.
We are engaged in the development of sites of any complexity, mobile applications, Internet sites, SRM systems, etc.
Our professionals have earned a certain reputation and trust among colleagues and also clients. We have been in the market for 10 years.
+ Our prices are cheap
+ We are ready to take the most complex projects
We also offer:
- actually ready-made constructors for mobile applications which can help advance the launch date of a mobile app, therefore you can save from 20% to 50% of your budget on development.
- various forms of prototype designs and a lot of launched admin modules, which have been tested by the business of other companies and bring them new and regular clients. It will make you even more successful in online business.
If you are interested in developing an MVP or other software, I will be happy to answer any of your questions.
Reply to our letter and we will send you additional information at your request.

Best regards, Alexander Ivanov

Other notable ones include a faux-pharmacy trying to sell sex pills to five people including myself, and an email in both Cyrillic script and broken English wanting me to buy a browser proxy package.

Here's the latter:

Бюджетные, шустрые прокси под любые задачи.
Пакеты от 25$/мес. до 5000$/мес. Приметы пакетов:
MIX ~ 20-25k socks4/5 – потоки, порты без ограничений, все протоколы- $25 месяц
MIX ~ 20-27k socks4/5;2-3к потоков $150 месяц
MIX ~ 10-15k socks4/5;10к потоков $600 месяц
Обращайтесь и мы сможем вам показать всю линейкутарифов и предоставить тест.
Прокси хорошо подходят под парсинг, рассылки, работу с социальными сетями. Поддерживается любой протокол.

Budget, smart proxies for any tasks.
Packages from $ 25 / month. up to 5000 $ / month Package Features:
MIX ~ 20-25k socks4 / 5 - streams, ports without restrictions, all protocols - $ 25 a month
MIX ~ 20-27k socks4 / 5; 2-3k streams $ 150 a month
MIX ~10-15k socks4 / 5; 10k streams $ 600 a month
Contact us and we will be able to show you the entire line of tariffs and provide a test.
Proxies are well suited for parsing, mailing, working with social networks. Any protocol supported.

 

[Killer Angel]

I recently had a few amusing spam emails sent my way,

the last one is similar to some of the spams we periodically blast away from this place.

 

[Scalenex]

with "I also have access to the camera on your dev͏ice". Which is totally cool, as i don't have any camera on my screen.

I don't either and I got a similar phishing attempt. I however plan to get such a camera soon. My friends and I are hoping to use computer cameras to play some tabletop RPGs that we can no longer safely play in person.

 

[Lizards of Renown]

Yeah, I have a friend who (no matter how many times I tell him to handle his email security) keeps getting hacked, but it's very low tech and just gives a link which no self-respecting computer user would open if their IQ was above 90.

That said, I know of a gentleman who got a mail from an African with "raw gold ore" that she just "needed money to get melted down into ingots".

He gave thousands before his daughter disconnected his computer and hid it from him. He really believed that he would get his money back...

Unbelievable.