Scammers use Gmail invite as phishing hook

Found on CNet News on Tuesday, 14 September 2004
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Scammers have caught on to the allure of Gmail and are using the Google e-mail service for a "phishing" scam to harvest e-mail addresses and passwords.

The "Gmail Team" asks users to give away their Gmail addresses and passwords to get the invites.

For those account holders genuinely given Gmail invites to hand out by Google, a click is all it takes to get a friend onboard. A message saying "You have 6 Gmail invitations. Invite a friend to join Gmail!" appears in the user's status bar, for example.

Why the scammers are after the usernames and passwords is, as yet, unclear. One possibility is to use the accounts to send spam. Another is the potential to search though the e-mail messages for any financial details left lying around in e-mails. With up to a gigabyte of storage per account, that's a lot of e-mail to trawl though.

Okay, so I am now also proud (?) owner of a Gmail account. Conclusion: totally over-hyped. 1GB? I have at least 5GB in Thunderbird right now. Search functionality? No biggie. And why should I store all my mail online? If someone manages to get the password, everything is gone. Last but not least: Gmail relies completely on cookies and Javascript. I had to reconfigure my system just to log in. Not impressive. I might use the address more if Google decides to allow POP or IMAP. Until then, this account goes into hibernation.