Here’s an interesting-yet-frightening story brought to you by the U.K.’s IT security journal, the Register. It features a particularly sophisticated pump- and-dump scam. If you’re unfamiliar with the term pump-and-dump, it’s a scam where hackers urge investors to pool their cash to buy a certain company’s stock, thus raising the price. Once the stock hits the roof, those in the know sell it off and make a tidy profit. By the time the stock dives and the tears start flowing, the vultures have long abandoned the carcass.
Now, if you’re like me, you wonder, who would fall for this old, tired ruse. And, you also question how the heck the emails made it past image suppression.
Apparently, lots of people fell for the scam. The hackers got around image suppressing by sending PDF files.
The company in question, Prime Time Group, watched their stock soar by 60%, thanks to the scam. There’s no word on whether Prime Time was even involved, since hackers turned unprotected computers into zombie terminals and used them to disseminate their nefarious message.
But the real nugget in the story is this: According to Sophos, an IT security firm, 25% of spam is the ol’ pump-and-dump variety. Hackers are getting more and more brazen and sophisticated. And, with stories like this, they’re getting encouraged by their results.
Unfortunately, technology is just like a luxury apartment building. You can try to secure it with floodlights and motion sensors, but someone will always find a way to sneak in through the automatic garage door.
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