Alzheimer's Association (act.alz.org) abused by spammers

The Alzheimer's Association in the US (alz.org) operate some sort of tell-a-friend system which is apparently easily abused by spammers.

From:     Marbu Contracting Company LLC. [info@alz.org]
Reply-To:     "Marbu Contracting Company LLC." [marbu.constructions.ah@hotmail.com]
Date:     30 September 2014 19:33
Subject:     Check out the Alzheimer's Association website!

Marbu Contracting Company LLC.
No.48,1st Floor,Kaamco
Building, Suhaim Bin Hamad
Street, Bin Mahmoud Qatar,
Tele:44204739.Fax:44289185
E-Mail:(marbu.constructions.ah@hotmail.com)


Marbu Contracting Company LLC. wish to use this medium to announce
that vacancies is now on for Qualified building contractors,
Structural Engineers/Electrical Engineer//Piping/Mechanical
Engineers/GIS/Land Surveyors,NDT Engineer, Civil Engineers, Project
Director,ETC. Candidates should have a Relevant degree B.Eng, BSc.
Eng or B racersTech,

interested contractor or candidate should apply with full resume and
details of jobs completed or ongoing for perusal.

Send You reply to:(marbu.constructions.ah@hotmail.com)

Regard's
Mr.Ahmed Haasen,
Human Resources Manager

I urge you to join me and visit the Alzheimer's Association today!

If the text above does not appear as a clickable link, you can visit the web address:

http://act.alz.org/site/TellAFriend?s_oo=F79cLz0Fs6dcX6iQ5Lb3TA

If you no longer wish to receive email messages sent from your friends on behalf of this organization, please click here or paste this URL into your browser: http://act.alz.org/site/TellFriendOpt?action=optout&toe=a136b421fe2a9b594f68767c21c537f6382420c25dbc7e041ccd4c50a5c00593 

The originating IP is 66.45.103.69 which closely matches the IP of 66.45.103.78 for act.alz.org mentioned in the email, so the email is genuinely coming via the Alzheimer's Association website from some scumbag spammers.

Is this actually from Marbu Contracting? Well, they have been around for 35 years and have their own website at marbucontracting.co and receive emails at the domain marbu-contracting.com, so it is unlikely that they would either resort to using a Hotmail account or sending spam in this way.

So is it a scam? It could be a dangerous one as some Qatari firms have been accused of running slave labour camps, so there's a good chance that this gig isn't what it is supposed to be.

But either the Alzheimer's Association or their service provider Convio Inc must bear some of the responsibility for creating a system that can be abused by spammers in this way. Although their site is meant to restrict sending these messages to ten addresses at a time, presumably the bad guys are running a script or have found some other way to bulk email using alz.org.

In conclusion.. ignore this bogus job offer. And remember to secure this sort of "tell a friend" functionality on your own servers.