Lottery scams use big brands, countries to bait prey

Lottery scams are nothing new, however criminals are learning new ways in which to beat spam filters and trick internet users. The "winners' notices" are but being sent as image or PDF attachments to go through keyword filters, and are originating from mainstream ISP domains. Poor grammar, unprofessional data formatting, unlikely benefactors and requests for personal info are the usual dead giveaways. The Canadian example originated from an Italian domain however referred to an African workplace that uses a Gmail account.