Party Invite Phishing Scams Are the New Missed Connections
Party Invite Phishing Scams Are the New Missed Connections
派对邀请钓鱼诈骗：一种新型的“错失联络”
This past April, while attending his nephew’s bar mitzvah on Cape Cod, Eric Umansky woke up to an inbox full of emails from people from his past. They all wanted to know the same thing: Was he actually throwing a party Saturday night? 今年四月，埃里克·乌曼斯基（Eric Umansky）在科德角参加侄子的成人礼时，醒来发现收件箱里塞满了来自旧识的邮件。他们都想确认同一件事：他周六晚上真的要举办派对吗？
The New York–based journalist wasn’t sure what party they were referring to, or why random acquaintances he’d met in passing 15 years ago were emailing him. On deadline and already stressed about work, he checked his phone, where more messages inquired about a supposed Paperless Post invite he’d sent for a “Special Private Dinner Party” at 7 pm on May 2. 这位常驻纽约的记者并不清楚他们指的是什么派对，也不明白为什么15年前偶然结识的泛泛之交会给他发邮件。当时他正赶着截稿，工作压力很大，查看手机后发现，更多信息在询问他发出的那份所谓的 Paperless Post 邀请函——邀请大家参加5月2日晚上7点的“特别私人晚宴”。
Except Umansky hadn’t sent the invite, and he wasn’t planning to host a party anytime soon. 但问题是，乌曼斯基根本没有发出过邀请，近期也没有举办派对的计划。
As it turned out, he was an early victim of an email scam that has since become more widespread. What Umansky didn’t expect was the positive effect it would have on his social life. 事实证明，他是这一电子邮件诈骗的早期受害者，而这种诈骗手段此后变得愈发普遍。令乌曼斯基没想到的是，这件事竟然对他的社交生活产生了积极影响。
In May, after receiving increased reports, the Federal Trade Commission issued a consumer alert warning about scammers sending “unexpected messages that look like they’re from well-known invitation platforms like Evite or Paperless Post,” noting how some messages “make you enter your email username and password to see event details” while others “tell you to enter a phone number and share a special code to RSVP.” 今年五月，在收到大量举报后，美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）发布了一则消费者警示，提醒公众警惕诈骗者发送的“看起来像是来自 Evite 或 Paperless Post 等知名邀请平台的意外信息”。警示指出，一些信息会“诱导你输入电子邮件用户名和密码以查看活动详情”，而另一些则“要求你输入电话号码并分享验证码来回复邀请”。
Umansky wasn’t sure how it happened; he thought he’d taken the necessary precautions to safeguard his email, including using two-factor authentication. All he could think to do was post a message on Facebook, LinkedIn, and his other social networks to notify people that he was, in fact, not having a party and, more importantly, “don’t come to my house.” 乌曼斯基不确定这是怎么发生的；他认为自己已经采取了必要的预防措施来保护邮箱，包括使用双重身份验证。他唯一能做的就是在 Facebook、LinkedIn 和其他社交网络上发布消息，通知大家他并没有举办派对，更重要的是：“别来我家。”
Phishing scams, which have proliferated across the last two decades, remain one of the biggest security risks faced both by individuals and companies. Email scams, in particular, can now be highly sophisticated, incorporating social engineering techniques like creating urgency or fear in a target and even leveraging the personal relationships between two people to manipulate a victim, what’s known as “spear phishing.” AI has only made those deceptions harder to weed out. 钓鱼诈骗在过去二十年里激增，仍然是个人和企业面临的最大安全风险之一。特别是电子邮件诈骗，现在已经变得非常复杂，融合了社会工程学技巧，例如在目标对象心中制造紧迫感或恐惧感，甚至利用两人之间的私人关系来操纵受害者，这就是所谓的“鱼叉式网络钓鱼”。人工智能的出现，让这些骗局变得更难识别。
But in some recent cases, like Umansky’s, the fake party invite is having an unintended outcome: It is encouraging people to check in to see whether the message was actually real and, in doing so, has reignited dormant relationships. 但在最近的一些案例中，比如乌曼斯基的遭遇，虚假的派对邀请产生了一个意想不到的结果：它鼓励人们去核实信息是否真实，而在这一过程中，沉寂已久的人际关系被重新点燃了。
“It was so striking to me after it happened that I actually had a thought that I was like, ‘Oh, is this a net positive?’” says Umansky, who over the last several months has reconnected with a handful of old friends and colleagues over lunch and via text. He recently spent an hour on Zoom with a former coworker who now lives in Mexico City. They hadn’t talked to each other in over a decade. “I was like, Oh, you know, I actually want to catch up with you about something. There was an idea I wanted to bat around with him, which we talked about for maybe 10 minutes. The rest of the time we talked about our lives.” “这件事发生后，我感到非常震惊，甚至产生了一个念头：‘噢，这算不算是一种净收益？’”乌曼斯基说道。在过去的几个月里，他通过午餐和短信与几位老朋友和同事重新建立了联系。最近，他和一位现居墨西哥城的前同事在 Zoom 上聊了一个小时，他们已经十多年没说过话了。“我说，噢，你知道吗，我其实想和你叙叙旧。我有个想法想和他探讨，我们聊了大概10分钟，剩下的时间都在聊彼此的生活。”
According to a 2024 study published in the scientific journal Communications Psychology examining social withdrawal, which surveyed 2,400 adults in the US, UK, and Canada, people are sometimes unwilling to contact old friends because they believe the other person won’t want to hear from them or they fear the interaction will be awkward. The research noted that “high priority placed on work and productivity in North America has led people to cut back on social connections and social time to meet increasing demands at work,” in addition to other life transitions, such as parenthood or moving to a new city. 根据2024年发表在科学期刊《通讯心理学》（Communications Psychology）上的一项关于社交退缩的研究，该研究调查了美国、英国和加拿大的2400名成年人，结果显示，人们有时不愿意联系老朋友，是因为他们认为对方不想被打扰，或者担心互动会很尴尬。研究指出，“北美地区对工作和生产力的高度重视，导致人们为了满足日益增长的工作需求而减少了社交联系和社交时间”，此外还有为人父母或搬到新城市等生活变迁的影响。
But a suspicious party invite is exactly the kind of low-stakes incentive that has made initiating contact easier because it represents the one thing we all crave: a sense of belonging. 但一份可疑的派对邀请恰恰是一种低风险的诱因，它让发起联系变得更容易，因为它代表了我们内心都渴望的东西：归属感。
According to Lara Aknin, a professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University whose research has explored the hesitancy around reconnecting with lapsed contacts, only 30 percent of people actually check in with an old friend “even when we make doing so as easy as possible by helping them identify a desirable, feasible, and low-risk contact.” 西蒙菲莎大学心理学教授拉拉·阿克宁（Lara Aknin）的研究探讨了人们在与疏远的朋友重新联系时的犹豫心理。她表示，即使我们通过帮助人们识别出“理想、可行且低风险的联系对象”来尽可能简化这一过程，也只有30%的人会真正去联系老朋友。
With email scams, “people are motivated and willing to reach out to an old friend because the scam provides a legitimate excuse or social cover to do so,” she says. “In fact, people may even be slightly grateful for the reconnection opportunity this context affords, even though they hope the scam is false.” 对于电子邮件诈骗，她说：“人们有动力且愿意联系老朋友，因为诈骗提供了一个合理的借口或社交掩护。事实上，人们甚至可能对这种背景下提供的重连机会感到一丝感激，尽管他们希望这只是个骗局。”
Most people will only have a small number of close relationships in their lifetime, and it is even fewer these days; nearly half of the population (44 percent) have five or fewer acquaintances. “In the course of [scammers] taking advantage of that real desire, they are actually helping fill it,” Umansky says. 大多数人一生中只有少数亲密关系，而如今这个数字更少了；近一半的人口（44%）只有五个或更少的熟人。“在（诈骗者）利用这种真实渴望的过程中，他们实际上是在帮助填补这种空缺，”乌曼斯基说。
He’s not the only one who has reignited old relationships after being targeted by a scam. “I heard from a friend of more than 30 years,” Larry Persily wrote in the Wrangell Sentinel, a local newspaper in Alaska, of the trend. One source confirms with WIRED that they are back in touch with an ex they haven’t spoken to in years after receiving a fake invite. 他并不是唯一一个在遭遇诈骗后重新点燃旧关系的人。拉里·珀西利（Larry Persily）在阿拉斯加当地报纸《兰格尔哨兵报》（Wrangell Sentinel）上写道：“我收到了一位30多年未见的朋友的消息。”一位消息人士向《连线》（WIRED）杂志证实，在收到虚假邀请后，他们与一位多年未联系的前任恢复了联络。
To be clear, the unintended consequence of scam attempts may be reconnecting with lost friends, but they’re not all Zoom reunions and brunch. The FBI estimates that scammers tricked Americans out of $21 billion in 2025 alone, with help from AI. 需要明确的是，诈骗尝试带来的意外后果可能是与失联的朋友重逢，但并非所有情况都是 Zoom 聚会或早午餐。联邦调查局估计，仅在2025年，在人工智能的帮助下，诈骗者就从美国人手中骗走了210亿美元。
Some of us remain impervious to the lure of the phishing trap invite. In late August, I received an unexpected Paperless Post invite—“Raise a Glass! Dinner & Drinks” the subject line read—from an acquaintance I hadn’t spoken to since 2017, though I immediately deleted it because I could barely remember who he was or why we even exchanged emails. I probably should have reached out. Maybe we both would’ve enjoyed the catch-up. 我们中的一些人对这种钓鱼陷阱邀请依然免疫。八月下旬，我收到了一份意外的 Paperless Post 邀请——主题行写着“举杯吧！晚餐与美酒”——来自一位自2017年起就没说过话的熟人。但我立刻删除了它，因为我几乎记不起他是谁，也不记得我们为什么会交换邮箱。我或许应该联系一下他的。也许我们都会享受这次叙旧。