Emerging Threats

AI-Generated Emails Flood Inbox in Apparent Scam

Analyst 207||Source: Schneier
Cluttered laptop inbox with papers, coffee cups, and sticky notes, with a hand poised over the keyboard.

All of the addresses were Gmail accounts.

The confirmation-step subscription process

The newsletter at the center of this report requires two steps to subscribe: prospective readers enter their information on a webpage and then reply to an automatically generated confirmation email. The author explains that the confirmation step exists "to prevent people from subscribing addresses other than their own." That double-step is important because it means the one-line replies the author began receiving were not incoming confirmations from legitimate subscribers.

The one-line replies: content and cadence

Beginning "last weekend," the author started receiving a sudden flood of short, positive messages in response to the monthly newsletter emails. Each message was a single line of praise. Examples supplied by the author include:

  • "Thank you for the positive impact your emails have had on my life."
  • "Your emails are a game-changer."
  • "Your emails are a constant reminder of why I subscribed."
  • "Your emails rock."
  • "Thank you for the time and effort you put into creating these informative emails."
  • "Thank you for the passion and enthusiasm you infuse into your email content."
  • "Your emails consistently exceed my expectations. Thank you for the exceptional value!"

The author reports initially replying to the first few messages, believing them to be genuine reader feedback. But the volume and simultaneity—"so many, and all at once"—led the author to conclude the responses were "obviously AI" and "obviously a scam." Importantly, after the author replied to those messages, "no one has responded to any of my responses."

The email addresses: all Gmail, many gibberish handles

The sender addresses themselves underline the oddness. The author reproduced a representative set of sender addresses, all using Gmail:

  • jnnvcddghjgfdryhj67@gmail.com
  • nbhgdfhjedty896565@gmail.com
  • jesikawells6873@gmail.com
  • niffelatopserean92@gmail.com
  • reinareyes983@gmail.com
  • htfhtfhhjkgth@gmail.com

According to the author, "None of the addresses has actually subscribed to Crypto-Gram." The author also notes a practical detail: these senders "could" have completed the confirmation step themselves, because "whoever is sending the emails could easily have confirmed the subscription." They did not.

Why the author calls it a scam — and why it remains unexplained

The author offers one plausible class of fraud as an initial hypothesis—"pig butchering"—writing that the first thought was the replies might be an attempt to elicit a conversational response and thereby groom a target. But the author immediately contrasts that with a contrary observation: despite the author replying to the messages, "no one has responded to any of my responses." That unanswered outreach is the crux of the confusion: the messages are patterned like manufactured engagement, yet they halted at the point where a conversation might begin.

What this means for newsletter authors, Gmail, and subscribers

  • Newsletter authors: The author experienced a wave of short, seemingly positive replies that were not tied to confirmed subscriptions and produced no follow-up after the author engaged. That combination created both nuisance and uncertainty about intent.
  • Gmail (email providers): The observed senders were all Gmail accounts; the author highlights those addresses as the source of the anomalous replies.
  • Subscribers and readers: The newsletter's confirmation step remains the safeguard intended "to prevent people from subscribing addresses other than their own," and the author notes the senders had not followed that confirmation path.

The phenomenon in the author's account is a narrow, concrete puzzle: an influx of one-line, AI-like compliments delivered from Gmail addresses that had not completed subscription confirmation, with no replies to the author's subsequent outreach. The author concludes by asking readers directly for insight: "Anyone have any idea?"

Original story

Emerging ThreatsGmailPhishingSocial EngineeringAI-Generated EmailsEmail Scam
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