Phishers Lure MobileMe Users With Fake E-mail

Ed Sutherland ()

mobileme_box.pngUsers of Apple’s online MobileMe service are once again the target of false e-mails sent by phishers attempting to persuade Mac users to divulge private information.

The e-mail purports to come from Apple, offering some friendly assistance with renewing MobileMe subscriptions; all that’s needed is your credit card information.

“Attempts to charge your credit card have failed,” the false e-mail mourns.

While the warning to never click on links (even in legitimately-looking e-mail) is often heeded, malicious hackers rely on the minority of Mac users that dismiss such security fears.

This isn’t the first time users of Apple’s online service have been the focus of phishers. In April of last year, another “Apple” e-mail was sent warning MobileMe users of a snag in billing.

“We were unable to process your most recent payment. Did you recently change your bank, phone number or credit card?” hackers asked.

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Scammers Take Another Stab At MobileMe Users

This latest phishing attempt comes as Apple tries to retain Windows-based MobileMe users. Apple announced Wednesday it improved MobileMe’s syncing capability for Windows Outlook users. The update of MobileMe’s Control Panel for Windows follows news that Microsoft is readying a rival service, MyPhone.

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About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • mimimacfarley

    Wow, why do people assume that if they aren’t being asked for their credit card number they are not being scammed. How do we get the word out that users need to protect all their personal information? And then on the other side of the coin—how do we get social networks, email and mobile applications to jump on the same train as websites and offer robust security measures that online retailers do. Are they so confident of keeping their user-base, is there no competition in the market to drive them to upgrade security. Online retailers have had to continually upgrade encryption and security (in order to keep their customers) and most are implementing the highest standards of security through Extended Validation SSL, which btw is impossible for phishers to copy. Therefore, the solution is two-sided, educated the users, and higher online security measures all round.

    On a final note, Valentine’s Day is tomorrow – practice caution before clicking all those e-cards. Phishers are extremely cleaver about using psychology to exploit and coax user-error.

  • http://www.google.com Harry Hill

    email me back im a loner