US Army "Scams" Service Members to Test Their Spam Gullibility

9gezegen writes "An offer for free tickets to theme parks for service members turned out to be an email scam, a ploy that was in actuality a security exercise run by the Army. Involved servicemen and DoD civilians received an email, allegedly coming from the 'Army Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command Office,' and directed them to a phishing site which asked for personal information. After rebuttal and warning by Army MWR, the website revealed that it was a security exercise after all. Army MWR later verified the exercise and announced they were not informed beforehand."

Comments

Re:.mil???

[Moonpie Madness]

.com is widely used.

There is nothing wrong with the military's affiliates using .com for legit businesses. Many military arms pull a profit (such as the PX: http://aafes.com/ ) .mil isn't for that stuff. Note that millions of people relying on services like this are civilians.

Re:In before....

[kd5ujz]

At least Half (if not all) of the military's equipment has VERY explicit instructions written on it, to the point that if you had not been trained in its use, you could pick it up on the battlefield and make it work in a few minutes. Take the AT-4 for example, if you follow the attached link and click on detailed instructions, you will see what is printed on the launch tube. In the other photos, you can see the instructions, but you can not make out the words.


http://www.bellum.nu/armoury/FFVAT4.html

According to them, roughly 30%

[ronabop]

http://www.army.mil/-news/2008/04/02/8265-phishing-e-mail-to-mwr-patrons-turns-out-to-be-army-exercise/ 10,000 mails sent, 3,000 visitors to the site (enough to gather IP addies, browser agents, etc.).