“Miss World Dies In Car Crash” A Nasty Hoax

Published 26th May 2006

Security experts from MicroWorld Technologies informs A hoax email about the death of the leading Indian Actress and former Miss World, Aishwarya Rai, is doing rounds fuelling mass hysteria, going with a fake BBC webpage to boot.

The mail reads in its counterfeit BBC news piece...

“The Highest Paid Bollywood Actress Ashwariya Rai, has been killed in a head-on car crash.

Ms. Rai, 32, from India, was killed in the crash in the, near Firle, East Sussex.

She had been at a special screening of her forth coming bollywood movie at Cannes Film Festival at nearby Drusillas Park before the fatal smash involving her blue Renault Megane and a city School Bus occurred.

A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said she was lifted from the scene by the Sussex Police and taken to Eastbourne District General Hospital, where she died from her injuries. Whereas her driver on the other hand died on the spot”

Written in true blue BBC style, this hoax looks like an authentic BBC webpage in every respect, complete with the logo and other links. What comes in BBC is considered to be the gospel truth for millions of people across the world, and this has just added fuel to the raging fire of this chain mail hoax. According to the statistics available for the last 24 hours, this is the largest circulating chain mail in the South Asian region.

Fear psychosis caused by mails like these can create wide-spread panic or even a stock market collapse. Repercussions of such malicious messages can have severe social and financial impacts as well.

“This email is a clear indication that people are faking anything and everything that’s respected for its reliability and authority. One needs to read this hoax mail along the lines of a flood of phishing scams that make merry by faking emails and websites of trusted organizations. There have been scams spoofing credit card companies, banks, governmental departments and even the FBI, done in a similar fashion,” said Aneesh Paliwal, Security Analyst, MicroWorld Technologies.

“Spam and chain mails can be quiet harmful to the day-to-day operations of enterprises,” points out Govind Rammurthy, CEO, MicroWorld Technologies. “At the first level, it’s about the productivity loss. At the second level, it’s about online fraudulent schemes and malware distribution. One just can’t think of securing online business communication without fighting the menace of unsolicited mails.”

MicroWorld Technologies has been consistently protecting enterprises and home users from spamming and phishing, with their AntiVirus and Content security solutions eScan and MailScan and their focused spam buster X-spam.





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