Half of Brits duped by scam message in last year thanks to AI, study reveals

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is bombarding Brits with an onslaught of scam messages, a new study by antivirus company McAfee reveals. As cybercriminals capitalise on AI to generate increasingly realistic cons, Brits are now wasting over a week every year deciphering scam messages from real, according to McAfee’s Global Scam Message Study. The research reveals that people…

UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw gets hacked

jack-straw.jpg

The UK government’s Justice Secretary, The Right Honorable Jack Straw MP, has been hacked by Nigerian fraudsters, who sent out hundreds of emails to his constituents and government figures asking for cash because he’d lost his wallet on charity work in Africa.

Straw says that everything’s okay because it was only his constituency office that was hacked, not his official government address. I’m sure that’ll make his constituents feel better, who’ve apparently been calling the office asking about the email. Only one replied, and his or her Hotmail account has since been suspended by Microsoft.

(via BBC)

Has iPhone mania gone too far? Scams and speculation rife

andy-merrett.jpgAndy Merrett writes…

I’m looking forward to the imminent release of the iPhone, even if it is taking place thousands of miles away from the UK, but it seems that every day someone has a new theory as to exactly when the iPhone will start being sold, and an utterly convincing reason for why they’re right.

The latest date is June 29th, and that’s true because a local manager in one of the AT&T mobile phone stores saw an email telling her. Apparently, they’ll all arrive in the dead of night (or maybe, mid afternoon) on June 28th, ready for packs of hungry iPhone fans (and not the occasional eBay scammer) to swoop in and sign up.

That doesn’t necessarily negate the “official letter” from AT&T telling staff that annual leave during this period would be discouraged.