Condé Nast publications surface from an US$8-million phishing scam

It’s 9 in the morning. You’ve survived the AM traffic and all you want to do is spend the next few minutes browsing the pictures of cute kittens your cousin Ronnie, twice removed, just emailed you.

However, like every morning, you must first wade through a trove of emails from European super-lotteries, soldiers in Iraq who have found Saddam’s hidden millions, and Nigerian bankers desperate for your help in relocating their funds internationally.

Well now we know who is to blame: multi-million dollar publishing house, Condé Nast.

As Forbes reports, referencing the names of a number of Condé Nast publications, a man by the name of Andy Surface was able to scam the company of some US$8-million. What was the brilliant scheme he employed to foil this massive company? Simple: email.

As the lawsuit to recover the lost funds states, Mr. Surface sent a single email to Condé Nast with what the lawsuit calls an “Electronic Payment Authorisation” asking that all future payments to Quad/Graphics—a Condé Nast printer—be directed to an account under the name of Quad Graph. Condé Nast, infinite in its wisdom of financial matters and eager to please their long-time printer, did just that.

It was only when Quad/Graphics called Condé Nast some months later tasking why they hadn’t been paid that Condé Nast realised there may be a slight problem. Being a respected titan of the American publishing industry, various federal agencies were brought in to help deal with the situation. Even Barack Obama was willing to go without protection as none other than the Secret Service was called in to handle this criminal investigation.

What had the dastardly Mr. Surface done with his ill-gotten gains?

Nothing.

The money was found sitting in “an obscure bank branch in Texas”, as Forbes described it.

And thus it was in the last week of March two defendants, neither of which was the wily Mr. Surface, were quietly sued in civil court—not by Condé Nast or its parent company, but by the US Attorney’s Office. Anyone who has ever fallen prey to an email scam would understand why Condé Nast chose to go about rectifying this matter quietly.

Of course, in addition to being incredibly stupid, Condé Nast was also incredibly lucky that Andy Surface was also incredibly stupid and left the money. For those of us who are a bit more net-savvy than Condé Nast, this isn’t the kind of scam we’re likely to fall for.

However, email phishing scams, which are most likely to target South Africans according to a recent Symantec online security report, are where the true danger lies. Telltale warning signs include:

• An unsolicited email from a company that you do business with, such as a bank or (as recently has been seen) a Facebook “friend request” notification email.
• The use of scare tactics and emotive language such as threats to shut down accounts to elicit a response.
• A web address that resembles one that you trust, such as www.(mybank).com but when you hover your mouse over it (do not click) a different URL shows up.
• A site that closely resembles the actual one, but that requests personal information via email or instant messenger.

Ultimately the best way to ensure that you do not fall prey to a phishing scam is to use your common-sense. When faced with these emails, instead of cursing that nerdy-looking guy from IT for not using a better spam-blocker, remember, it’s not really his fault that you have so many emails to delete.
Even as you sit here, reading this story about Mr. Surface, know that you are not alone. A would-be scammer might have also just read this piece and might already be typing an email thinking, “Well, if Mr. Surface can get $8million, what’s stopping me?”