Microsoft Lottery scam emails
No day passes without millions of people being harassed by scam letters that inform them about winning a fictive lottery. The wrongdoers never take breaks and they constantly expand their reach, so it is only safe to say that nobody is completely safe. Being capable to identify the threat and take the right actions is the best one can do, and the first step is to stay up to date with the latest scams. Microsoft Lottery scam is an excellent example, and it is worth giving you the heads up about it.
No such thing as Microsoft lottery
The first thing that people need to know is that there is no such thing as Microsoft lottery, so any e-mail claiming otherwise can immediately be tagged as fishing. The company is involved in plenty of projects and has greatly expanded its scope, but lotteries are not among the ventures it runs. One question that arises is why would any scam artist chooses Microsoft as the name for his deceitful campaign, instead of focusing on names that ring familiar to lottery players.
The main reason has to do with the fact that Microsoft is a popular name worldwide, and less educated people trust anything related to it. This is why the recent Microsoft lottery scam is so effective despite looking like a rather transparent Phishing attempt. A simple system is used and random people are targeted by the perpetrator with scam e-mails, they try to engage them in a conversation. After they get their attention, the scam artists make wild claims and launch an aggressive call to action.
Stay on the safe side by ignoring the e-mails
The messages try to convince the recipient that he is the recent winner of a lottery that is run exclusively online, and that their e-mail address was randomly selected. The next step is for the e-mails to persuade people to send a small amount to a certain bank account so that the jackpot can be released. It is customary for the cybercriminals to ask people to pay an amount in advance and since these are relatively low and the prospect of winning a large jackpot is appealing, many people fall into that trap.
Cybercriminals are getting smarter and they have no hesitation in using famous brands and credible people such as Bill Gates to make their scam attempts more likely to succeed. It would be a mistake to underestimate their creativity and since they’re willing to go to great lengths to achieve their goals, these people shouldn’t be trifled with. The best way of dealing with the threat is by deleting the e-mails immediately after marking them as spam, without even opening them to see the content.
