The New York Daily News is reporting that Acting State Supreme Court Justice Lori Sattler was the victim of an email scam while trying to sell her apartment and buy another.

    Justice Sattler

The press report says that a person posing as the Justice’s lawyer sent her an email with payment instructions. Believing the email came from her lawyer, the justice wired $1,057,500 to the account specified in the email. The money was then transferred to Commerce Bank of China.

The Justice was the victim of a crime of deception perpetrated using email.  This crime relied on the fact that it is hard to distinguish real email from well-crafted fake emails. The Justice is not alone.  This is how every phishing attack works. SP Guard provides a tool to help distinguish real emails from deceptive emails.