Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Nigerian Scammers break into UK Foreign Minister's Webmail

Constituents of Jack Straw, the UK Foreign Minister, received a strange email. It claimed that he had lost his wallet while on a trip to Nigeria, and he needed $3000 to get home.

Never mind that he the Foreign Minister of the UK.Gov, and that the embassy presumably will take care of him. Never mind that it asked for dollars, rather than pounds sterling.

It's someone from Nigeria asking for money. Duh.

The email, sent from a Hotmail account, claimed Straw was in Nigeria promoting a charity called Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, and was supposedly in trouble after losing his wallet. One constituent reportedly replied to the bogus email, but no money was offered.

The Hotmail account used in the attack was later suspended but Straw's official website still lists blackburnlabour@hotmail.com as an email contact address for those interested in reaching the Blackburn MP.

Long-time readers will remember that this isn't the first time that a high profile politician has had their email account compromised. Sarah Palin's email was hacked during the election.

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2009 at 12:42 AM

    Interesting. This seems to be a pretty common scam now. I know a guy who recently got his Hotmail account phished, after which the scammers changed his password and sent out a similar "help me, I've lost my wallet while on a trip" email to everybody in his address book.

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