Burmese Internet Users told not to click unfriendly links received in their emails
MoeMaKa Reporter 003
October 12, 2008
Most of the Burmese inside Burma used free email account from Google’s Gmail and the numbers were found grown to ten of thousand, one analyst told MoeMaKa. They used primarily to check emails from friends and contacts inside and outside of Burma, to chat online and to send messages to their blogs.
It was learnt that some hackers were trying to hack into Gmail boxes to steal personal information. They sent links that led the users into such a tricking way to reveal their user id, password and personal information, according to the sources inside Burma.
One example was a link called – “Gtalk Bomber” sent inside an email message to steal personal information and another one was an email confirmation link to redirect the email to someone else’s. If when someone accidentally clicked such links, the email messages would be stolen or their personal information exposed to others.
According to one analyst, the simplest way to steal user id and password was to present the user with fake website to submit their information or scam the user to submit its consent to share personal information to such website. It was an old trick and still popular when targeted to user at their surprise or when the user was not paying attention to email message or the link they were looking.
It was advisable that user had to check his setting of his email whether “e-mail forwarding” was turned on to unknown email address or frequently change his password of his email account. It was also good to share such precautionary news among users and friends too, one of the cautious readers told MoeMaKa.
While the news and the speculation that the Burmese regime was trying to hack into Burmese opposition media website run by exile journalists were on the rise, some of the opposition media sites put their best effort to protect their data and confidential information. Some of the audience of MoeMaKa told that such unfriendly email attempts were not coincidence these days.