Currently cyber criminals try to make fast money by spamming out emails in masses in Germany which allegedly stem from an Advocate specialized in copyright. According to the spam mails, the user was downloading copyrighted material. An IP address is in the email to proof that. To not call the attorney to action, the recipient of the mail is offered to send 100 Euros via a payment system called Ukash. Don’t fall for that social engineering, don’t pay!
Some hints to detect that this is a scam and no real offer:
– The address the mail was sent to is wrong; the real recipients address was BCC’ed.
– The recipient isn’t addressed via his/her real name and nowhere addressed directly.
– Sometimes Umlauts get used, sometimes they are replaced by “ae”, “oe”, “ue”, and sometimes even just the basis letter is used.
– An advocate would send something like this by old-school snail mail. Additionally, some sending-proof-system like registered letters gets used.
– An advocate wouldn’t use services like Ukash.
So please, if you received that mail, just smile about it and delete it. Don’t pay in any case!
Credit to Dirk Knop (Technical Editor – Avira)