New Spam Campaign Delivers Death Threats

A new spam campaign has a disturbing twist. The messages aren’t selling anything or attempting to lure the recipients to a malicious site. Instead, they tell them they have only days to live.

With subject lines like “Somebody you call friend wants you dead!” they can’t help but get the recipient’s attention. The message is even scarier. The writer claims to be a hitman hired by one of their friends and says they will be killed within 10 days and are being tracked down by the hitman’s associates. However, it goes on to say, they are willing to make a deal and spare the recipient’s life for $8,000. The instructions are to wire $3,000 immediately and the rest at a later date. The message ends with a warning not to go out after dark.

Fortunately the threats are bogus, and the hitman just another cybercriminal. It’s just a new play on the old Nigerian scam, only they appear to be getting tired of making up stories about lost family fortunes, exiled royalty, and fake inheritances from fake relatives and have turned to simple threats. Pay up or die. It’s unknown how many people have fallen for the threatening scam but one thing is clear, those who do will get more messages with more threats and extortion as they’ve indentified themselves as an easy mark.

The Nigerian or 419 scam (named after the Nigerian criminal code covering it) has been around almost as long as the web itself. Sadly, many people have lost their life savings and a few have even lost their lives after traveling to Nigeria to find their promised fortune.