GMail Scams?!?!?

[450]

Well...I (well, my parents...but they ask me to check it sometimes) GMail account recieved an email from "mail@gmail.com". But. This email was in the 'Spam' box. I thought my dad just sent it to the spam box...well I opened the email and the email said that I had violated some rules of my isp and that my email address was going to be shut down...yeah right.

Also, they ask for person info and sometimes want me to download an intructions zip file...(I wonder how it got past...gmail doesn't allow .zip extension)

Since then my parents have been getting more of these mails...

What to do???

They all come from 'mail@gmail.com' and 'administrator@gmail.com'...

 

[D-EJ915]

Some guy probably just registered as those names to fool people into thinking it's legit.

 

[Jmmmmm]

I get those all the time to my school account. Probably generated by some program that clones/mimics real email address and sends out emails from them. That or the computer with that email address is infected with a virus that is sending out the emails. In the past week, I've gotten two emails from my 'registrar' and 'administrator' notifying me that I've successfully changed my password. Sweet!

Make sure you delete those emails, they're definitely viruses. Hopefully you are ok as long as you don't download the file. And maybe it isn't actually a zip file, it just looks like one (which would explain why it wasn't removed). It's more likely an .exe

 

[jpburton5150]

yeah, this is commonly called fishing - pretending to be someone with a higher authority to suck you into trusting their virus riddled programs, well actually i think the real definition of fishing is pretending to be someone official asking for info so you give them all your info which from then they can steal your identity and other stuff like that, regardless it's a bunch of crap. the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) for some stupid reason doesnt require control of an email address to send an email from it... an SMTP protocol exchange typically goes like this:

server: hello who is it?
me:this is me, bill gates
server:ah okay, so you want to send an email? who is this from?
me:hmm how about billgates@microsoft.com
server: k, who is this going to?
me: um myfriend@gmail.com
server: k, what do you want to say in this email
me:i love you
server: k, will that be it?
me: yup
server: k its sent, have a nice day

no authentication whatsoever... although the reason gmail recognizes it as spam because , usually emails are sent from a server with the same domain as the email address (and actually many servers require authentication to get access) so an email from billgates@microsoft.com from a redhatlinux.com server probably isnt legit.

meanwhile, there are better protocols such as POP3 that are more secure, but why exactly SMTP is still employed kinda perplexes me. anyway check out the RFC's for more information

hope i was clear (and correct), its kinda late and i only know this all from personal investigation (i used to send emails to kids (my friends) from the "principal" saying they've failed, haha but i told them it was me later of course).

 

[Wizard Prang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpburton5150 /img/forum/go_quote.gif yeah, this is commonly called fishing

I think you mean "phishing".

 

[Uncle Erik]

You bumped a four year old thread for that?

Here's some handy tips for resurrecting threads:

1. If you want to update it with new information.

2. If you have a relevant, substantive comment.

3. If you want to ask a relevant, substantive question on the topic without starting a new thread.

 

[TopPop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 450 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Also, they ask for person info and sometimes want me to download an intructions zip file...(I wonder how it got past...gmail doesn't allow .zip extension)

Uhhh... what?

 

[krmathis]

 

[Nocturnal310]

haha krmathis..now i get it how u get such a high post count

 

[3602]

Floor 8, for a long time have I not seen a Battlestar Galactica fan...or just anybody who knows what a Cylon is...
This happens all the time. With Hotmail this is just routine. Now I use AOL and what a peace of mind.

 

[DocHamm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nocturnal310 /img/forum/go_quote.gif haha krmathis..now i get it how u get such a high post count

At least he does it with good graphics! LOL