Posted by Virus Bulletin on Feb 25, 2005
News channel sends spam message as 'breaking news'
MSNBC.com, the online news service run by Microsoft and NBC News, was forced to make a red-faced apology this week, after accidentally sending a spam message to subscribers to its breaking news alert service.
The statement on MSNBC.com read: 'Due to human error, a spam email sent to MSNBC.com was inadvertently and mistakenly distributed to our breaking-news subscriber list.'
All new emails posted to MSNBC.com's breaking news email list are forwarded to an MSNBC employee for approval before being released to the list. However, in this case, the system failed when an employee mistakenly approved a lottery spam message, causing it to be distributed as if it were a legitimate news alert from MSNBC.com.
MSNBC.com said it is 'taking steps to make sure [this] does not happen again'.
Posted on 25 February 2005 by Virus Bulletin
