Hotmail Phishing
More than 10,000 Hotmail accounts were compromised in October and passwords were posted on several Web sites where developers typically share programming code.
Startup Suicide
In September, social media advertising and applications startup RockYou sent out a mass e-mail to their customers and associates announcing their new site redesign, but mistakenly displayed the entire mailing list of over 200 email addresses in the "CC" field.
Not surprisingly, many of those addresses ended up on a spammer's list.
Judge Orders Gmail Account Deactivated
In August, Wyoming-based Rocky Mountain Bank accidentally sent names, addresses, Social Security numbers and loan information of more than 1,300 customers to a Gmail address.
When the bank realized the problem, it sent a message to that same address asking the recipient to contact the bank and destroy the file without opening it.
After getting no response, the bank contacted Google and eventually went to court, getting an order to have the account deactivated.
Payroll Panic
Payroll processor PayChoice was the victim of a Web site breach in which customers received targeted e-mails purporting to be from the company, but were designed to trick people into downloading malware.
U.K. Tax Terror
Britain's tax authority, HM Revenue & Customs, issued a warning about a rash of scam e-mails that used convincing (but fake) government e-mail addresses in an attempt to lure recipients into divulging their personal information to receive a tax refund.
The scam messages claimed that recipients were entitled to a tax refund and asked for bank or credit card details, so that the fictitious refund could be paid out.
Death, Taxes and Phish
In September, a fake e-mail notice that purported to come from the Internal Revenue Service made the rounds.
The bogus message, containing a subject line of "Notice of Underreported Income," contained a link or an attachment that, if opened, infected users with the Zbot/Zeus Trojan, a nasty credentials-stealing program.
University Fake-Out
In March, University of California San Diego sent out an acceptance congratulation letter to 46,000 students.
Unfortunately, the e-mail was sent out in error to all 46,000 students who applied to attend the school, and only 18,000 had actually been accepted.
The university soon realized its error and had to send out a very humble apology.