A new scam by Claudia Sonea

The Internet is a powerful tool; therefore it can be used by people eager to have an unfair gain. Computers are under the assault of "pump-and-dump" spam which makes bad guys rich. A leading IT security company claimed that global spam has increased 30 percent in the last 24 hours. "Pump-and-dump" process is based on a spam campaign promoting a company that has shares on the market and the owners wants share price to rise in order to sell and make profit. SophosLabs' experts discovered 500 million emails containing advice to invest in Prime Time Stores Inc. that shows how the technique works. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Britain-based Sophos said it was the biggest spam campaign ever and was detected in Germany. The emails announce that shops of Prime Time Stores in Puerto Rico will be opened and advises everyone to buy shares. Prime Time Stores, which is the exclusive licensee for 7-Eleve, refused to make any comments, but the stock rose 2.35 percent at the beginning and 30 percent on Monday. According to Sophos stock campaigns account for about 25 percent of all spam nowadays and the perpetrators are difficult to catch by police or stock market regulators. Apparently this is the new way of making money and spam is likely to be used by international crime gangs. Levine, the author of the bestseller "Internet for Dummies", advises everyone to not trust this spasm emails, because since 1920s it is known that no one would give a stock tip for your own good. All in all, surf on and watch out for those PDF file encouraging you to buy shares of a company you never heard about.

related story: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070808/ttc-technology-it-stocks-0de2eff_2.html

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.