Email scammers get creative with bizarre bestiality death threat

31 Jul 2012

IT security and cybercrime analyst for ESET Ireland Urban Schrott is warning Irish people of an email scam doing the rounds that – though hilarious – should be treated just as any other spam and deleted.

The email in question has been posted in full by Schrott and alleges to come from a professional assassin named Dai Teatime, contracted by mysterious organisation SMERSH.

The mail then goes on to describe how the so-called assassin was asked to arrange a particularly nasty death for the email recipient that would make it look like they died in a “bizarre sex game gone wrong”. Apparently, this would involve a horse named Henry, a sex toy from Bad Dragon, and some lard.

But the benevolent martini-sipping assassin is reaching out to his target as he has discovered that they are innocent. He offers to strike a deal with his would-be victim, saying, “Get back to me if you value your LIFE.” He then signs off, “Toodle Pip!”

“While it got a good laugh out of us here at ESET Ireland for its hilarious style and imagination, and kept us guessing whether his martini was shaken or stirred, a spam is still a spam and the consequent resulting scams can still cause much frustration from the unfortunate victims,” wrote Schrott in the post.

The email, which contains the subject line ‘YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER’, has no doubt been emailed to countless accounts at random. If someone were tempted by its humour and originality to respond and engage this spammer, they would immediately become a potential victim for a targeted attack.

“Best thing to do in such cases is just to delete all such emails and not reply to them at all,” Schrott advises.

Spam image via Shutterstock

Elaine Burke is the host of For Tech’s Sake, a co-production from Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. She was previously the editor of Silicon Republic.

editorial@siliconrepublic.com