Cyberspace fraudsters cash in on Pope's death

In the greedy world of spam e-mail and electronic fraud, nothing is sacred - not even the death of Pope John Paul.

Spammers are using the Pope’s passing to entice the Roman Catholic faithful worldwide into a bogus moneymaking scheme by luring them with an offer of free books about the pontiff, a British-based computer security expert warned today.

The spam campaign was detected last Friday – the day John Paul was buried - said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant with London’s SophosLabs PLC.

“Sadly, the spammers wasted no time at all,” he said.

Experts have not yet been able to trace the source of the offer, which begins with unsolicited e-mails sent to people offering a free collection of books about John Paul if they click on a link included in the message. Honour His Legacy, the book offer urges.

Curious consumers are then taken to a site which apologises that the books are not available in their location, and are automatically redirected to another site offering advice on “free moneymaking secrets,” Cluley said.

That site makes no mention of the Pope.

The campaign is similar to a February scheme that capitalised on the huge interest in the latest Harry Potter novel, said Cluley, whose company has labs worldwide that analyse spam and help businesses stop it from streaming into their e-mail.

The use of the Pope’s death as a hook to defraud unsuspecting consumers is part of a trend linking spam to news of national or international interest, prompting people to open e-mail they ordinarily might delete.

Experts say there was a flurry of spam offers of bogus goods and services tied to last year’s US presidential election and pop star Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.

“It’s incredible that these e-mails began on the day of the Pope’s funeral,” Cluley said. “But the crowds on the streets of Rome suggested there was a market. There are a lot of people who might want to honour the Pope’s memory by buying books about him, especially if they were unable to make it to Rome.”

“The spammers can make so much money that they’ve got no morals at all. When they send a million e-mails, they know some people will go for the deal, and they only need a tiny percentage of people to do it,” he said. “They’re right down in the gutter. This was so tasteless.”

It was unclear how many people might have been defrauded.

Last week in Virginia, 30-year-old Jeremy Jaynes was sentenced to nine years in prison after being convicted in the US’ first felony case against illegal spamming for bombarding Internet users with junk e-mails.

Jaynes gained notoriety for peddling sham products, including a site that masqueraded as a source of refunds for Federal Express overnight mail customers.