[ILLUSTRATIONS] By Ron Benvenisti. Adding to the list of the ingenious methods criminals use to obtain information and steal your identity is this latest example of social engineering derring-doo. I submit for your perusal: the phone subscriber trap.

It goes like this. You get an email that tells you that your wireless bill is ready for review. In this case it is AT&T. After all there are 5.1 million total subscribers (as of Q1 2012); that’s lots of sucker-fish in the barrel. If less than 1% fall for this scam that’s still a nice 5 figure catch that could be worth 5 figures each. You get the idea. Just common sense market return statistics.

Let’s look at this brilliant piece of social engineering. It looks totally like the real AT&T notification email, down to the last detail. No tell-tale typos, corporate colors are spot-on. A perfect clone. So where’s the bait? $1927.72 worth of charges. If you happen to be in that rare minority of 5.1 million subscribers you’ll most likely get that first rush of panic followed by a determined urgency to fins out, “Wha Happened? $1927.72???? How is that possible???” But slow down because in your rush to click and get to the bottom of this you will be transported to a beauty products site in the murky depths of Indonesia that’s been hacked to look exactly like AT&T just to steal your information. And you’ll be getting more than a manicure, I assure you.

Let’s look at the pictures I grabbed. Figure 1 shows the purported AT&T email as it shows up in your in box. A truly fine specimen of phishing scam artwork. Figure 2 shows the “get their attention” factor with an inflated bill and hope the victim will click to find out what’s going on here. Now look closely at Figure 2 and see that the highlighted link has absolutely zero to do with AT&T, but a parasite hacker feeding off the real estate of poor old “lisdashop” in Jakarta to run the ID theft scam operation from anywhere in the world. Figure 3 & 4 show you that clicking any of the links will take you to the same criminals link trap.

Now let’s look at Figure 5. It’s a Google entry that shows “lisdashop” was hacked by “Jnon Hacker” of the “Saudi Arabia Hackers”. In fact the Google page links to the hacked version of the site!!! I warn you if you will click there you will put your computer at risk and see the hacker’s disturbingly macabre “graffiti”. Figure 6 is a record of some of the known exploits by this slippery joker. He’s running a global enterprise! An enterprise that costs innocent victims 114 billion dollars a year.

So there you have it, delivered right to your in box. If you are one of 5.1 million AT&T subscribers and get this email what would you do? Acting in haste will take you to an online beauty shop in Jakarta where you will get scalped by an Arab hacker who makes fools out of so called international cyber-crime professionals who don’t have to get scalped because they’re already pulling their hair out trying to cat and mouse guys like “Jnon Hacker”. Sort of like Tom & Jerry, make that Itchy and Scratchy if you know what I mean.

My advice. Stay safe. Even if it looks legit don’t open it and certainly don’t click anywhere in it, on it or even near it. Call your provider with the number on your bill and find out what’s going on before it’s going, going, gone.