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Scamming Spammer Hooks the Wrong Person

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the line-and-sinker dept.

CrypticSpawn writes "Read on SecurityFocus, a 55 year old woman spammed an FBI computer crime agent. She got caught mailing off a credit card scam to AOL users." Her scam targeted AOL users with messages saying their credit cards were refused during the last billing cycle, and linked to a false billing center page which demanded private information.

2 of 408 comments (clear)

  1. Geez... by Cytlid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... sounds like she got off a lot easier than those caught sharing music via p2p programs. Either the FBI should hire the MPAA or anyone swapping music online should start credit card fraud, it sounds like the lesser offense.

    --
    FLR
  2. Oops... by Pan+T.+Hose · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think everyone (not only "spammer") had such an "Oops" in her career. I remember when we counterattacked CIA agents scanning our network... I saw a host slowly and randomly syn/fin/null scanning (something like nmap --randomize_hosts -Tparanoid but with -sS, -sF and -sN changing randomly -- a custom patched nmap or something like that) our hosts, so I answered with directing a broadcast-magnified traffic to its class C (something like "smurf" but with custom tools using UDP and TCP as well as ICMP packets) to disable the offending host, having absolutely no idea that I saturated the backbone of ISP used by a CIA covert operation. Imagine my surprise when I saw agents knocking on my door... Fortunately after I described some of my techniques and explained to them that I am a security professional, not a cracker, they let me go but if I wasn't working for the government at that time I probably wouldn't write this now. I wonder what stories other slashdotters can tell about their biggest "Oops!"

    --
    Sincerely,
    Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
    "Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."