…It’s a 419 (Advance Fee Fraud) message, of course. Stripped of the pseudo-governmental flim-flam, the core of the message is that they want you to forward them this…

…I know that Facebook has various countermeasures for dealing with the even more various types of fraud that Facebook users are subjected to. Does it really believe that those measures are so effective, no fraudulent message can ever get through?

I've just blogged at a site that specializes in chainletter-related spam and scams about a 419-type spam  that masquerades as an email from the non-existent Frank Adam at the Civil Aviation Authority.,It's aimed at people whose air travel was disrupted by the Icelandic volcano, specifically those who found themselves stranded somewhere on mainland Europe. However, I thought

When we think Advance Fee Fraud (AFF) we usually think in terms of the 419-type scams often associated with Nigeria, though similar frauds actually come from all over. You know the sort of thing: the banker, or the wife or son or daughter of a defunct dictator or benevolently inclined millionaire plane-crash victim wants to share their

Responding to a request for information about phishing and malware distribution mechanisms this morning, I happened upon a link on the Anti-Phishing Working Group site to the Silver Tail blog  The site has been running a series of blogs on "Online Fraud from the Victim’s Perspective". Author Laura Mather tells the story of two victims,

I’ve been asked several times in the past few months about links between the global recession and criminal activity, especially as related to fraud. There are, of course, those who claim that the economic situation is directly caused by "criminal" activity by politicians and banks, which is a little further than I’d care to go personally. What

A memo to Middle- East Asia Promotion. Thank you for letting me know that I’ve won $720,000.00 in a promotion sponsored by Dell and the Emirates Foundation. Four days running: nothing suspicious about that, nor the fact that my wife has apparently won the same amount in the same promotion every day for the past

…no promise of chicks for free, but I did get spam this morning offering me a "Free-Trial kit" for some scheme for "making money through the Internet by doing almost nothing" (probably some sort of pyramid scheme, I guess, updated with a reference to using Google). While I’m not about to take up the offer, I