Get ready for a flood of offers, spam and phishing attempts with the word "stimulus" in the headlines. Some messages and websites will no doubt be legit, others will not, but I suspect that computer security staff will not like this word very much a few months from now.
Allow me to illustrate... I returned home from an all day ski trip with my family in northern Michigan on President's Day (February 16). After helping to get the kids to bed, I sat down with my laptop in my favorite chair and went online to find out what news and email I had missed over the past 24 hours.
As I was checking out the headlines at AOL.com, which is my wife's default home page, I saw this sponsored ad highlighted near the top of page:
I Got a $12,000 Stimulus Check in Less Than 7 Days. Get Yours!
(Just for the record, I don't know this guy nor am I encouraging you to go to this website.) I just wanted to give you an example of what I'm talking about. Still, I'm sure that someone will think that I am phishing for stimulus with this post.
So why does this bother me? For one, the President hasn't even signed the legislation yet. How could this guy have received any stimulus check already? If you go to his website, he calls the check a "grant" that is "money I do not have to pay back." He is obviously using that magic word to grab our attention. It worked in my case.
Second, these types of ads and emails will soon be all over the place. Governments may even be tempted to block spam emails with the word "stimulus" in the subject heading. But be careful! You may also block stimulus emails that are legitimate.
In security terms, this is just another email spam or phishing campaign. We've seen them before from major world events such as the Olympics, Super Bowl, World Series, tsunamis, hurricanes like Katrina and Ike and more. I suspect that this campaign will be somewhat successful - given our current economy and the attention that this topic has received.
Third, governments need to be aware that various ads, emails, and other messages regarding the stimulus will be everywhere as they try to send their own true stimulus messages. When we returned home from skiing, we even had a voice message on our answering machine from a politician on how he helped to make the stimulus happen. From buying cars to new houses to various other provisions, get ready for a deluge of stimulus stories.
In these very hard economic times, many people are hurting financially. The sad truth is that even a positive message can become difficult to deliver when the field becomes crowded. Numerous good news articles are appearing daily on all aspects of the stimulus package. Our job is to help enable the good and disable the bad (messages). It won't be easy.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Seen any good stimulus ads lately?
The US Gov't will NEVER contact you through email!
Albert,
Thanks for your comment. I suspect you are referring to the US Gov't not contacting the general public through email.
My comment about not "blocking stimulus emails" was in reference to state and local government employees. Many of us are now receiving dozens of emails a week on this topic from the federal government, private sector, professional associations, non-profit groups and others. These emails are legit.
By the way, the stimulus messages are coming at us from many other channels besides email. The ad I mentioned (and I've seen several others over the past week), are all over popular websites. Some of these offers are fine and others are (and will be) misleading.
Dan