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In response to
"Do any of you tech folks have cybersecurity stories you'd like to share?"
by
New, Better David
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Not quite a cybersecurity story per se, but
Posted by
Marlowe
Sep 28 '20, 18:49
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This was early in the internet days, probably something like 1998, 1999 or so.
The wife of a co-worker of mine (a guy on IT, incidentally) was mugged by a couple of guys dressed as cops. He sent an e-mail internally, telling people to be safe.
The guy that worked with me (I guess he was my boss at that time) was on vacation, and when he came back he sent an e-mail to his contacts here. The e-mail had his signature, with his phone number, e-mail, maybe the area e-mail we used.
That e-mail went viral. For at least a couple of months, he would receive e-mails and phone calls from people that received it, asking if it was true (the wording in the e-mail kinda suggested that my friend's wife was the victim). And then more e-mails. We saw many times in the forward chain people mentioning "this is true, I called them and they confirmed it". Which, of course, just made more people send e-mails to ask if it was true. And people call to see if it was indeed true. The press called. The police called and went to talk with the guy that had sent the original e-mail. My sister got the e-mail, forwarded by a college classmate.
The most amazing, however, is this. My friend left the company before I did, but his phone number was still one of the few I used (I had multiple numbers because we used them for trading). I kept getting phone calls. I got one maybe 5 years after the fact. I had to tell the person: check the date of the e-mail!
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