In days of old, a man without a signature would just mark an 'X', but today it seems like there is another, more common, signature. I was doing some work the other day and came across a Word document that had an attachment. It turned out to be a phishing scam but part of the document caught my eye.

The signature did not match the name. The name was Dr. Simon Brown and the signature looks like this:

The signature was for Carl A. [indecipherable]. This made me wonder if it was just some generic image of a signature that scammers use. So after a search through our file collection and a stroll around the internet I found that I was correct - this is one very popular signature indeed with the phishing community. Now there are many blogs and sites out there that cover these scams in far more detail but this is what I found about files with this image embedded in it.

• There have been scams using this signature in them since at least 2006.
• The following are some of the names that have been attached to the signature in the phishing attachments:
  

  Dr. (Mrs.) Felicia Daniel	Dr. (Mrs.) Mercy Hartemink	Dr. Austin Benjamin
  Dr. Ferguson Andrew	Dr. Frank West	Dr. George Williams
  Dr. John Briggs	Dr. Larry Smith	Dr. Mack Anthony
  Dr. Mark Brown	Dr. Mark Winters	Dr. Martin Evans
  Dr. Matt Brown	Dr. Richard Morrison	Dr. Robert Mueller
  Dr. Smith Brown	Dr. Smith Don	Dr. Smith Williamson
  Dr. Steve Mark	Dr. Tom Wilson	Jenni Falconer
  Michelle Falkosky	Mr. Christ Rawlins	Mr. Daniel Rougerie
  Mr. Evans Henshaw	Mr. Graham Smith	Mr. James Norris
  Mr. Muhtar Kent	Mr. Roberth Mueller	Mr. Teddy Kennedy
  Mrs. Brunelli Naleen	Mrs. Elizabeth Walters	Mrs. Lisa Parker
  Mrs. Lourdes Vidaurre	Mrs. Nicola Mckeon	Mrs. Patricia.S.Brown
  Mrs. Rita Brown	Mrs. Rosemary Clair	Prof. Alex Kingston
  Prof. Martin Johnson	R. Simon Brown	Rev. James Moore
  Rev. Robert Morgan	Sir. Muhtar Kent

• At least 15 had the title of "Coca Cola Games/Lottery Coordinator"
• The documents are all related to winning a prize of around £400,000 to £1,000,000 from different companies in England.
• The following company names are among those that have been used illegitimately in these fake lotteries:
  BBC
  British High Commission
  British Telecom
  Coca-Cola
  ESPN
  Fifa World Cup
  Golf international
  Microsoft
  Nokia
  Toyota
  UK Lottery
  Yahoo

I suspect many of you have seen these emails, but if not they all follow the same sort of format. They tell you that you have won a prize and ask for a whole bunch of details so that you can claim that prize. I even came across one that wanted a photo. For those who have not seen them here are a few examples. Please note the signature on all of them, it should look familiar.

The oldest reference that I found to the signature on the web is a shipping company that dates their website to 2003. This leads me to believe that this was an open source image that the scammers have enjoyed using. (Unlike the various logos you see above, which are trade and service marks that are used illegally.)

I still do not know what the original name was though, Carl A...

- Michael Johnson
MMPC Melbourne

P.S. I do not think that I need to say it again but never open an email from someone that you do not know. It is very unlikely that you have won the Coca-Cola lottery or any lottery for that matter. Please use safe practices when dealing with email.