By Daria Belov
A chiropractors e-mail account was hacked early Monday morning, resulting in an emergency e-mail request for money being sent to his family, friends, colleagues, and even clients. The perpetrator requested that funds be mailed to Nigeria. It’s unlikely that this was the only individual targeted and people are urgently advised to be on the lookout for similar looking e-mails.
It was early this morning when an e-mail arrived at the Planet Chiropractic office e-mail address from a Yahoo account owned by a practicing chiropractor in California. The title of the e-mail read “Emergency!!!” and the body of the e-mail mentioned the sender reportedly having lost all their money while traveling to an AIDS education seminar in Africa.
The e-mail includes poor spelling and grammar (but that’s nothing new on the Internet) and a request for money to be sent via a Western Union Money transfer. It should be noted that e-mail scams like these almost always involve a request for funds via wire transfers. We’ve posted copies of actual e-mail attempts and many e-mails related to classified ad fraud, but this is the first I’ve seen of this nature.
Below is a full copy of the e-mail that was sent after the chiropractor’s account was hacked…
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Emergency!!!
Hi
How are you doing and i hope this email find you well. I notice i didn’t inform you about my travelling to Africa for a seminar called Empowering Youth to Fight HIV/AIDS and Bringing HIV /AIDS Education to Health Care,the seminar has already taking place in three major states in West Africa which are Yamoussoukro, Freetown and Ibadan.
I need your help urgent because i forgot my little bag in a Taxi where my money and my ticket were kept. I want you to help me please now because i am having a little problem with the hotel management due to the hotel bills and i have lost all my money including the money i burget for the hotel bill, and i have to solve out the hotel bill before i leave, I am now owning the hotel bill of $1,600 and the hotel management want me to pay the bill fast.
Please i want you to help me with the hotel bill payment and i will also need an extra money of $1,200 to feed and to help myself back home.
Please i need your help on time before the hotel management decide on what to do. I will be happy if you can help me with an amount of $2,800 and i will pay you back when i return.
I will appreciate what so ever you can afford to send me for now and you can help to send the money through western union money transfer to the information below and let me know when you send the money so that i can have all the information from you that i needed to received the money at western union. Please understand how urgent i need your help.
Receiver Name :– (chiropractors name)
Address:— 88, Jakande Road, Isheri
City:— Lagos
Country:– Nigeria
Zip code:– 23401
Regard,
(chiropractor first name).
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By using the chiropractors name in the e-mail, it may have appeared legitimate to those reading it. Also, the fact that the account was owned by a healthcare professional, who very likely could be traveling for a health-related seminar, makes the e-mail appear almost legitimate.
Are hackers targeting chiropractors and health-care professionals or are random e-mail accounts being used for malicious purposes such as this one? We don’t yet know the answer to that, but I’d suspect those attempting to get money sent to themselves in Nigeria are not too particular as to whose e-mail account gets hacked. That being said, chiropractors and other health-care professionals are advised to pay particular attention to the security of their e-mail accounts, in hopes of not becoming part of fraudulent e-mail attempts being sent to those on their mailing lists.
Has your e-mail account been hacked?
planetc1.com-news @ 12:44 pm | Article ID: 1223927118
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