The Brit Method

Fitzmichael

http://sacredheartgridley.com/creature.php?henry=1p5na6v4crp8p
This came in an email apparently from my daughter. She's away at the moment, so I can't ask her about it, but at best she may have intended me to get this http://sacredheartgridley.com, tho' I don't know why.
Anyway, it must surely be something MSE is aware of, and possibly some Forumites, so can anyone explain what must be a scam? And maybe an IT-savvy member can explain how it takes over the intended url.

masonic

This is just someone's affiliate marketing link to the dodgy binary options trading site hidden within the church website. Possibly by the person who built the website for the church, or someone who has been able to gain access to the website. I doubt this email came from your daughter at all.

Plus

I've been getting a lot of those recently. As I understand it the email of one of the big providers was hacked a long time ago (someone suggested Yahoo in 2007), which means the miscreants got subscriber details with their contact list.

They then send spam purporting to be from the subscriber to people in their addressbook, usually with a short email including a link. The links are all over the place, but often include something.php? and then a unique ID. Most likely the websites in question have been hacked. I've never visited them, but usually the unique ID means they can tell which recipient clicked on the link.

Unfortunately not only did you fall for this, you've posted the link to the internet so the link will see much more traffic. That'll probably be the cause of much more spam to you in future

Fitzmichael

Well, I didn't 'fall for it'. You get an email from your daughter (apparently) and you look to see what it's about. It's so obviously a scam that I find it hard to believe anyone could believe it - like, free money? There's no malware - I did a scan. Web reports say those who (unbelievably) 'join', then get asked to deposit some money to start their 'investment'.

DrSyn

It's called "spoofing an Email address". Recently I got an Email from myself that I knew I had not sent.

If you do click on it, a good idea is to scan with your security software just in case malware has been dumped on the computer!

Plus

You fell for it in the sense that you clicked on the link. That causes the spammer to know you exist and you click on links in emails. That's information they can sell to other spammers for cash. Hence you just made a profit for the spammer, and you can expect a lot more spam in future.

By posting the link to the internet and more people clicking on it, it just gets better and better for the spammer

Of course, they really hit paydirt if someone falls for whatever scam they're advertising too...

cheesetoast

Check the email address it's coming from. You may well find that, if your daughter's email is jane.smith123@yahoo.com, that it's actually coming from jane.smith123@somerandomplace.com.

She's probably not trying to get you to that church website, she probably never even sent the email herself. And the scammers have probably sent it to everyone else in her address book too.

masonic

cheesetoast wrote: »

Check the email address it's coming from. You may well find that, if your daughter's email is jane.smith123@yahoo.com, that it's actually coming from jane.smith123@somerandomplace.com.

The 'From' address of an email is trivial to forge. There really is no need to create a lookalike email address, so spammers wouldn't go to the trouble.