Walmart Customers Receive Racist Spoofed Emails

Walmart Inc WMT has swung into damage control after spoofed emails containing a racial slur were sent to customers.

What Happened: On Monday, dozens of Walmart customers began posting photos of the emails from a help@walmart.com account on Twitter Inc TWTR that featured racially offensive language in both the subject line and body of the email.

In a statement to the media, Walmart attributed the emails to an unknown entity from outside of the company.

“We discovered that an external bad actor created false Walmart accounts with obvious intent to offend our customers,” the retailer said. “We were shocked and appalled to see these offensive and unacceptable emails.

“We're looking into our sign-up process to ensure something like this doesn't happen again. We're also looking into all available means to hold those responsible accountable.”

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How Could It Happen? In a CNN interview, cybersecurity expert Vikram Thakur said it was not uncommon for digitally-focused miscreants to find consumers’ email addresses online.

“The actors likely acquired email addresses from an easily and freely available 'dump' from a historical third-party compromise,” said Thakur, technical director at Symantec.

Spoofed emails can go beyond insults.

Last year, “Shark Tank” star Barbara Corcoran nearly lost more than $388,000 when Corcoran’s bookkeeper received a spoofed email made to look like it came from Corcoran’s assistant requesting a wire transfer. Fortunately for Corcoran, the bank the bookkeeper used to wire the money froze the transfer before it was deposited in the scammer’s bank account.

(Photo by JJBers / Flickr Creative Commons.)