Spoofed Emails Are Becoming A Bigger Problem

from the latest-tactic dept

Back in December when I first got hit with the spoofed-spam attack that sent out tons of email pretending to be from me, I contacted a few news organizations who told me it wasn’t an interesting story at all, and wasn’t any different than a regular spam attack. It appears some reporters are beginning to realize there’s more to spoofing than typical spam. The Associated Press is running an article talking about how spoofed emials are being used for all kinds of attacks, including specifically targeting individuals for harassment. They include the story of the lawyer who had his email spoofed and even include a short quote from me about the nature of the people who “responded” to the spam I didn’t send. The article also points out that this sort of directed attack is only likely to increase as more people realize just how easy (and destructive) it can be.


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Comments on “Spoofed Emails Are Becoming A Bigger Problem”

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3 Comments
Agent Orange (user link) says:

SPAM spoofed e-mails

Yes, they are being spammed and sent out to harass people. Some people seem to delight in this practice – simply because they disagree with you. Sad to say that this nation is so passive-aggressive that it cannot stand up on its own feet and say what they believe. Instead, spammers are weenies, they use a system to cause pain without ever doing anything other than being an annoyance. No guts if you ask me. No intestinal fortitude at all. Simply weak-willed weenies.
If I have a problem with something that a person says, I can either choose to talk to them or ignore it. I will go straight to the source, and express my opinion. I don’t think this sort of attack has any honor in it at all. Think of it like the Iraqis fighting the troops who held up children for human shields. The spmmer is holding you up as their shield because they want to cause havoc, but lack any real bravery or courage.
Such actions invite bad kharma – and it will be repaid, the universe will demand a just balance.

Chris (user link) says:

No Subject Given

I guess I’m still waiting for my 15 minutes of fame đŸ™‚ I might need a lesson on being quoteable! Actually, a lot of what I said to him contradicts some of the other quotes he used – so its no surprise he didn’t use anything from me. I had no personal negetive reprecussions from the spoofing, and I quickly set up a filter to delete most of the bounces at the server before I even saw them. I also told him that PGP was not a solution because people don’t use it, and I don’t expect digital signatures to become commonplace anytime soon.

Mike (profile) says:

Re: No Subject Given

Heh. I actually told him similar stuff, which is why it appears he didn’t use most of what I told him. I said that any solution like PGP that requires people to figure it out isn’t going to go over well… It looks like (like many reporters) he took the quotes that made the argument he was trying to make and just went with that.

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