ESET Ireland

Massive new spam run directed at Irish mailboxes

Every now and then we’re lead to believe the cybercriminals have looked in another direction for their earnings, such as social media scams or as was the case in the recent months, the mobile devices. But then we get regularly reminded, that whilst seeking greener pastures, the crooks don’t forget to work the old routines as well. And so the Irish mailboxes have been assaulted with a massive spam run, from a supposed Spanish lottery, and to make it all seem more credible, they went to the effort of translating it as Gaeilge as well.

Here is the full content of the fraudulent email:

Botnets (networks of infected computers belonging to regular computer users like you or me, remotely controlled by cybercriminals) are usually used for propagating such volumes of spam. Usually spam runs were spread globally. That’s why it is not unusual to receive an email in Ireland pretending to come from “Bank of America”, saying “your account has been suspended” and “give us all your details, including all your card pins and login details, so we can verify and restore it”. But such a general message will hardly fool anyone in a country it doesn’t refer to. That is why in the recent years we’re seeing more and more targeted attacks, tailored for and directed to specific countries or user groups, made so to seem more credible and therefore being successful in deceiving people into playing along. Translating it as Gaeilge is sure to strike a certain chord of credibility to many Irish users and playing along in this case means sending your private info to the crooks for further use and abuse.

This and similar spams are not harmful by themselves, if the receiver doesn’t do what he’s told. Mark the message as spam and ignore it. Don’t even reply to it, or tell the offenders something they’d deserve to hear, as by doing that you have confirmed your email address as valid and they can then use it when preparing the next scam.