Online scammers are one of the lowest forms of humanity. They trick people into clicking links, downloading malicious software, and performing all sorts of evil tasks.
Most scam emails are relatively innocent and even a bit funny. They may claim to be princes from Nigeria, for example. Or, they may claim to be an official representative from your bank despite poor grammar and vocabulary in the email.
But this new type of scam email takes the cake in terms of awful people doing terrible things online:
The email is targeted at computer users in the UK and tricks people into thinking they have cancer. The email claims to be from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The “National Institute for Health and Care Excellence sounds like a scam institution itself but is actually a real UK medical organization.
Obviously, the email is not sent from NICE and even the meanest doctors in the world likely wouldn’t tell their patients they had cancer over an impersonal email.
The subject of the emails generally say “Important Blood Test Results” or something along those lines. Who can pass up a subject heading like that?
Once users have read the email, they’re encouraged to download their “test results” and print out those results to send them to a doctor.
Of course, instead of downloading cancerous test results, users download dangerous malware which wreaks havoc on your PC. The only one getting cancer in this dreadful scenario is your PC.
If you ever receive an email informing you of a cancer diagnosis, then you either have a really bad doctor or you’re the attempted victim of a horrible malware scam. Be smarter than that.
