Is Brian MacKenzie Ok?

[Bill Gibson]

I received this email in my spam inbox today at 11:29 am...I don't know if this is a scam or not, but the email address is briamackenzie@yahoo.com. Here's the message:

"Hello,

I had to send this message to you, due to an unforeseen circumstance that I encountered. I traveled with my family for a Vacation to the United Kingdom and unfortunately for us, we had an accident of which I dislocated my right arm and my head got bruised. The driver of the cab passed on due to internal bleeding and the injuries he sustained on his head.I have not been able to reach any one due to the fact that I misplaced my phone,credit card and some valuable document during the accident.I don't want to make a scene of this to anyone to avoid panic.Thank goodness, my family are safe. and presently I am in a hospital, due to the injuries we sustained.I need your urgent assistance.

I anticipate your response."

[Sean Dunston]

this is a common scam email - new version of phishing - I wouldn't worry about Brian.

A few of my clients have "sent" these to me in the past few months.

[Jeremy Maddox]

This happened to my wife several months ago. They took control of her hotmail account and facebook (she had the same password for both...not smart) and changed the passwords. Then they sent a similar message to all her contacts.

I was on a business trip in Chicago and got a call from some dude she went to school with telling me not to worry because he and some other classmates had started pooling resources to help get her home from England....

Several people replied back to the email and the hacker gave them instructions for sending money to western union...

[Katherine Derbyshire]

There's been an epidemic of phishing attacks lately, tied to both a hack at Gawker Media in December that nabbed 1.25 million addresses, and a more recent one at Epsilon, which apparently handled (legit) email marketing for a whole boatload of big companies.

Not a bad idea to make sure you have a strong password for any online email service. An even better idea is to use two-factor authentication if your vendor provides it, and consider a switch if they don't.

Google supports it, and explains why it matters here: http://www.google.com/support/accoun...=1056284&hl=en (WFS)

Katherine

[Brian MacKenzie]

Im fine... It was an email scam that got hacked through my facebook account. IGNORE and report here if you have time: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mai...CSGPm5YQIHjSN4

[Aron Darling]

This is still going on! Got it today!

[Steven Bowser]

ha ha.

[Helen M Brennan]

hehe! they are multiplying... one of my lists is being bombarded with similar emails..

sigh

H