Topic: Head of FBI almost fell for phishing scam

[Diabolico]

Used to get these emails often, same goes for eBay and Paypal scams. Almost fell for one some years ago, realised it was a scam because of the urls.

Who falls for this type of scam?

SAN FRANCISCO--No one is immune from cyberthreats, not even the head of the FBI.

FBI Director Robert Mueller was banned by his wife from doing online banking after he nearly fell for a phishing scam, he said on Wednesday during a talk at the Commonwealth Club of California.

He received an e-mail purporting to be from his bank that looked "perfectly legitimate" and which prompted him to verify some information. He started to follow the instructions but then realized that that "might not be such a good idea," he said.

"Just a few clicks away from falling into a classic Internet phishing scam," Mueller "barely caught himself in time" and admitted he "definitely should have known better."

He said he changed his passwords and tried to pass the incident off to his wife as a "teachable moment," but she was having none of it and told him, "It is our money. No more Internet banking for you!"

[Robin-Graves]

TEEE HEEEE!!!!

[dweez]

We get all kinds of phishing scams going on here at the uni I work at.  My dept runs the e-mail servers and we have scripts in place so that if any account looks like it might have been hijacked (say it starts sending out 100's of e-mails a day when it usually only sends out 10) then the account is locked down to only being able to receive mail).  The user then has to call the help desk and request a password reset before it is unlocked.

I always set my e-mail client to convert e-mail to plain text.  It often makes for an ugly e-mail, but it lets you tell right away that the link they want you to click is not "Bank of America" or whatever they're trying to make you think it is.

[laama]

If Mr. Mueller almost fell classic phishing scam,how many ordinary people fall in a day?

Probably there was cursing campaign first and then half of FBI runs out of the doors trying to burn phishers balls.

[Robin-Graves]

If Mr. Mueller almost fell classic phishing scam,how many ordinary people fall in a day?

Probably there was cursing campaign first and then half of FBI runs out of the doors trying to burn phishers balls.

I hope they burn every one they find.

Ive had my identity stolen a couple times because of a workplace I was at sold it to illegal aliens from Mexico.
They need to do something about that too.

But BOT,,we get alot of scams like the one Mr. Mueller almost fell for from Nigeria and Canada. So there is nothing the American authorities can do about it due to treaties and things.

[laama]

I hate Scam/Spam everyday more and more,I had to delete 2 email accounts and one was Hushmail SSL protected account after massive poo post avalanche.

Phishing is large scale business nowadays and it growing so fast,that not even authorities can't control it (and sometimes it looks like that they don't even want to do it).

[Robin-Graves]

I know here in america they had one last year where a guy from Canada got his hands on some secure checks from a place in Oklahoma City and had them sent to people.
They were for 4800 dollars.
He would give an address and phone number to them to send 2000 of it to pay taxes on something like another 50 thousand that they had comming.
 When alot of people had them cashed and found out it was fraudulent, they turned the guy in.
But due to a treaty we have with Canada, the US authorities couldnt do anything, and the Canadians wouldnt do anything because the vistims were outside thier country.
I guess crime DOES pay.
 You know, if we did that in America to a foriegn country like that,, they would turn us over and forget we ever existed.
It really seems like America doesnt want to protect our citizens from foriegn crime.