10th
Researchers from McAfee’s Avert Labs are warning people not to fall for get rich quick schemes that are starting to come into their e-mail inboxes.
These schemes are basically chain letters that are based on the age-old pyramid scheme of having people send a certain amount of money to a person at the top of a list of names and addresses, to which they add their own name to the bottom, in hopes of eventually getting lots of money once their name reaches the top.
“These rip-off schemes have reached the Internet a long time ago,” said Francois Paget, a researcher with McAfee’s Avert labs. “Chain letters are now disseminated over the Internet [and] rely on copying and e-mailing your contacts rather than the established paper method.”
Paget explained that when somebody decides to enter the chain, they would send money to the participant on the top of the list via PayPal. His e-mail address would then be displayed when they run the software. After payment, the recipient is supposed to send back a registration key that modifies the configuration by entering the details of the gullible caller at the fourth place and thus altering the list of previous participants. Having done this, the updated file must be sent out to as many people as it is possible to entice more victims and gradually push the sender to the top of the list.
(click on the title to read the full article)
