[August 22, 2011] Online identity theft on the rise in Kuwait Tweet KUWAIT, Aug 23, 2011 (Kuwait Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Dr A.S., an official from Kuwait's Ministry of Health is the latest victim of a vicious cyber crime phenomenon that led to the complete loss of his address book and compromised his personal information. Identity theft scammers hacked his personal email last week and impersonated him to email everyone on his contact list soliciting financial help. The call for help arrived in an email correspondence headed 'Emergency' that originated from A.S' actual email account. The fraudulent email described a fictitious ordeal supposedly suffered by the doctor whilst overseas, making an urgent request for money after, it said, the doctor was robbed in Spain with his embassy failing to assist him. Promising reimbursement, the fraudulent email added that A.S. could not be reached by phone. Thankfully, over 40 friends from his address book and from around the globe called A.S. upon receiving the email and before taking steps to wire the money. "This is how I found out that my email was hacked," he told the Kuwait Times. Even more disturbing, he says, is that in a follow-up email, the online scammers sent a copy of A.S.'s passport which they had obtained from his email, requesting that the money be wired via Western Union. After hacking his email, the cyber criminals' method included opening a new online account almost identical to the original email address for follow-up correspondence. "They changed only one letter in my email making it hard to notice," A.S. said. He explained that in his email account, which he described as being like a business card, he stored valuable information and documents, adding that fortunately, none of his contacts sent any money to the scammers. One friend of A.S. was sufficiently taken in by the fraudsters' claims to begin exchanging emails with the fraudsters requesting further information. He received A.S.'s passport copy and was assured by the hackers that it provided sufficient information to cash any money transfer via Western Union. A.S. is not the only victim of these innovative identity cloners. There have been at least four separate incidents of email phishing reported by Kuwait residents whose Yahoo, Hotmail And Gmail accounts were accessed and whose personal information was compromised and misused by fraudsters who, like those who attempted to cheat Dr. A.S' contacts, hacked their emails and sent fraudulent begging emails impersonating the victim to everyone on their contact list while impersonating the victims. One Kuwaiti student living abroad, Rasha, who lost years of research and contacts with friends and classmates across the world, asserted that those online criminals need to be punished. "I had spent days and nights researching materials for my thesis. Overnight I lost it all," she said appealing to the authorities to criminalize online identity theft. In another case, the email account of another Kuwaiti, Nawal, was hacked and all of her friends, family and business associates received emails begging for financial help to assist her after she was left penniless and stranded in Europe. "People on my contact list informed me about the scam," she said, adding, "This whole thing is terrible. Another victim, Dr Sami, revealed that his email was hacked in a similar fashion last summer, with all of his contacts receiving a similar email saying that he was in trouble and in need of urgent financial help. He fell prey to the phishing methods used to steal one's identity online by being redirected to click a bogus site. After extensive correspondence with the Yahoo team, three of the victims had their emails retrieved. However, their address books were gone. A.S. lost over 2,000 contacts and two years of correspondence, and Dr Sami lost years of valuable research. For Rasha, her years in the university have "more or less vanished with just a click." She said, "I had stored [in my email] precious moments, pictures, research papers and personal documents that will be hard to collect ever again. There is no shortage of creativity when it comes to cyber crime as we've seen from the notorious Nigerian scam, as well as fake royals claiming to have millions of dollars waiting for the lucky recipient, and another con offering a generous cut of Saddam Hussein's captured riches to anyone willing to help fund their expert. The more recent 'rescue-a-friend' phishing scam is making the rounds in Kuwait and beyond. Following his ordeal, A.S. offered a few nuggets of wisdom: Do not leave any valuable information in your email account; do not give your password and personal details to any mediator in online communication, try to be careful when visiting websites and avoid giving out any personal data to unsolicited emails. A.S. observed that when receiving suspicious emails from colleagues, friends or acquaintances our brain needs to be in a state of meta-awareness. ___ (c)2011 Kuwait Times (Safat, Kuwait) Visit Kuwait Times (Safat, Kuwait) at www.kuwaittimes.net/ Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]