Verizon Wireless is continuing its crackdown on wireless scams with a Tuesday lawsuit against several companies accused of sending unsolicited, mortgage-related text messages.
Verizon filed suit against Pennsylvania-based Money Warehouse, Inc., known as All State Mortgage Lender, and other unnamed companies for allegedly sending 800,000 spam text messages to Verizon Wireless customers and employees beginning in February 2009.
Verizon filed suit in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., accusing the companies of violating the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which bans the use of an auto-dialer to contact wireless customers.
"At a time when many Americans are concerned about making their mortgage payments, these types of unwanted text messages, from unknown senders, can be upsetting," Steven E. Zipperstein, vice president and general counsel at Verizon Wireless, said in a statement. "Our company will continue to work diligently to stop these people who break the law and harass our customers."
Late last month, Verizon reached a $50,000 settlement with St. Louis-based National Auto Warranty Services and Florida-based Explicit Media for making illegal telemarketing calls promoting car warranties.
SOURCE : http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2346542,00.asp
Verizon filed suit against Pennsylvania-based Money Warehouse, Inc., known as All State Mortgage Lender, and other unnamed companies for allegedly sending 800,000 spam text messages to Verizon Wireless customers and employees beginning in February 2009.
Verizon filed suit in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., accusing the companies of violating the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which bans the use of an auto-dialer to contact wireless customers.
"At a time when many Americans are concerned about making their mortgage payments, these types of unwanted text messages, from unknown senders, can be upsetting," Steven E. Zipperstein, vice president and general counsel at Verizon Wireless, said in a statement. "Our company will continue to work diligently to stop these people who break the law and harass our customers."
Late last month, Verizon reached a $50,000 settlement with St. Louis-based National Auto Warranty Services and Florida-based Explicit Media for making illegal telemarketing calls promoting car warranties.
SOURCE : http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2346542,00.asp
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, email scam, lottery scam, Nigerian Scam, scam, spam, spam news
Posted on Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Malware analysts at BKIS (Bach Khoa Internetwork Security), a security vendor in Vietnam, caution end-users that a fresh attack is targeting users of Yahoo! Instant Messenger to steal their accounts and send spam from them.
Nguyen Minh Duc, Manager of Application Security Department, BKIS', first discovered the malicious attack when one of his friends sent him a spam mail promoting a service for weight loss, as reported by SoftPedia on May 18, 2009.
Researchers at BKIS state that the IM-based spam schemes have occurred several times in the past. But such e-mails are generally dispatched when someone log-in his account from a PC infected with malware. This infected PC helps in the distribution of messages.
However, the current attack does not follow this pattern, as Minh Duc discovered. According to him, when he received the spam mail, he called his friend and found that he had neither accessed his Yahoo Messenger account nor knew anything about the weight reducing service. Minh Duc concludes, the spam wasn't dispatched through automatic software from his friend's PC.
According to BKIS, it has been detecting the assaults since March 2009, but it hasn't still been able to determine the way the malicious e-mails are being sent. The security researchers said that the particular behavior in which hackers, instead of changing the passwords to log-in the accounts they hijacked and used them for spamming messages, was the characteristic of social-networking viruses and not common for IM services.
Minh Duc further notes the weight loss advertisement is accompanied with a buzzing sound, a type of spamming that is not popular. But he cautions that it could become a growing trend and use other IM applications too in future.
Thus, the security researchers say that users, who might be thinking that hackers have compromised their accounts in this particular way, would be safe to reset their password from an uninfected computer. They should also try to spot the PC from where the theft of their log-in details occurred, then do a full scan with an antivirus on that system and eventually begin utilizing a dependable security suite.
SOURCE : http://www.spamfighter.com/News-12430-BKIS-%E2%80%93-Yahoo-IM-Accounts-Compromised-to-Distribute-Spam.htm
Nguyen Minh Duc, Manager of Application Security Department, BKIS', first discovered the malicious attack when one of his friends sent him a spam mail promoting a service for weight loss, as reported by SoftPedia on May 18, 2009.
Researchers at BKIS state that the IM-based spam schemes have occurred several times in the past. But such e-mails are generally dispatched when someone log-in his account from a PC infected with malware. This infected PC helps in the distribution of messages.
However, the current attack does not follow this pattern, as Minh Duc discovered. According to him, when he received the spam mail, he called his friend and found that he had neither accessed his Yahoo Messenger account nor knew anything about the weight reducing service. Minh Duc concludes, the spam wasn't dispatched through automatic software from his friend's PC.
According to BKIS, it has been detecting the assaults since March 2009, but it hasn't still been able to determine the way the malicious e-mails are being sent. The security researchers said that the particular behavior in which hackers, instead of changing the passwords to log-in the accounts they hijacked and used them for spamming messages, was the characteristic of social-networking viruses and not common for IM services.
Minh Duc further notes the weight loss advertisement is accompanied with a buzzing sound, a type of spamming that is not popular. But he cautions that it could become a growing trend and use other IM applications too in future.
Thus, the security researchers say that users, who might be thinking that hackers have compromised their accounts in this particular way, would be safe to reset their password from an uninfected computer. They should also try to spot the PC from where the theft of their log-in details occurred, then do a full scan with an antivirus on that system and eventually begin utilizing a dependable security suite.
SOURCE : http://www.spamfighter.com/News-12430-BKIS-%E2%80%93-Yahoo-IM-Accounts-Compromised-to-Distribute-Spam.htm
Labels: 419 Scam fraud, email spam, Nigerian Scam, spam
Posted on Friday, June 12, 2009
Pop diva Madonna has caught swine flu as has actor Salma Hayek, if the latest round of spam mail doing the rounds is to be believed. Using this potential pandemic as a bait for phishing (stealing personal data from your hard disks), spammers are using creative and over-the-top headlines — often with links to respectable news sites for added credibility — to entice unwary users to click on random links that could turn out malicious.
About five per cent of global spam volume now mentions swine flu in the subject line - totting up to billions of messages every day, according to the software technology company McAfee. In the guise of seemingly innocuous links offering preventive tips to combat the flu, these digital creepy crawlies, encoded into malicious data stealing programmes, will install themselves in your PC, scan your hard disk for personal data and revert to the malware writer.
The last scams of such proportions were post-26/11 and during the U.S. presidential race. This sort of subterfuge is termed "social engineering" - security parlance for using current events to beguile the hapless netizen.
New opportunity
Not surprisingly, spammers sprang into action on April 23 just days after the swine flu outbreak was first reported. Though the problem is global in nature, McAfee has traced more than half of the total volume to Brazil, the United States and Germany. While some e-mails offer links to pharmaceutical sites and information on drugs for treatment, others are simply news reports and links or FAQ files.
Symantec Security Response spotted an Adobe PDF document titled "Swine influenza frequently asked questions.pdf." The problematic code has been detected as Bloodhound.Exploit.6, which contains an "Infostealer" file which is downloaded onto the system. Wary of fuelling panic surrounding this "sensitive situation," a Symantec executive explains: "When users attempt to access the PDF file, malcode (which is simply a set of software instructions) within the PDF attempts to exploit an old Adobe vulnerability (BID 33751) in order to drop malware on the local computer."
Further, a blog on the Symantec Official website refers to another campaign where the e-mail uses linked news headlines from reputed news agencies and seeks responses and user experiences to be filled in a form (with URL provided) or asks readers to write back with their e-mail address and phone number. "This time around it is an e-mail address that the spammers are more interested in collecting — perhaps as part of a harvest for their future campaigns," the blog states.
In an e-mail response to The Hindu, Prabhat Singh, senior director at McAfee Avert Labs, said domain names related to swine flu were being snapped up to host malware, launch spam and phishing attacks. The number of such sites has increased 30-fold over four days, experts claim. "In one case, a Russia-based site instructs the visitor to install a 'video codec' to view a movie. This isn't a real codec to allow viewing; instead, it is malicious software that puts the victim's computer at the beck and call of the attacker," Mr. Singh explained.
Experts advise computer users to keep all security and other software up to date and avoid opening files and e-mails from unknown sources. "Malware writers, spammers and scammers are lowlives using any high impact news story to push their wares. Users should not follow links that arrive in spam, instant messages or on social networking web sites. If they need any information on the flu situation, they can go to the World Health Organisation website or any reputable source," Mr. Singh said.
SOURCE : http://www.hindu.com/2009/05/24/stories/2009052456051500.htm
About five per cent of global spam volume now mentions swine flu in the subject line - totting up to billions of messages every day, according to the software technology company McAfee. In the guise of seemingly innocuous links offering preventive tips to combat the flu, these digital creepy crawlies, encoded into malicious data stealing programmes, will install themselves in your PC, scan your hard disk for personal data and revert to the malware writer.
The last scams of such proportions were post-26/11 and during the U.S. presidential race. This sort of subterfuge is termed "social engineering" - security parlance for using current events to beguile the hapless netizen.
New opportunity
Not surprisingly, spammers sprang into action on April 23 just days after the swine flu outbreak was first reported. Though the problem is global in nature, McAfee has traced more than half of the total volume to Brazil, the United States and Germany. While some e-mails offer links to pharmaceutical sites and information on drugs for treatment, others are simply news reports and links or FAQ files.
Symantec Security Response spotted an Adobe PDF document titled "Swine influenza frequently asked questions.pdf." The problematic code has been detected as Bloodhound.Exploit.6, which contains an "Infostealer" file which is downloaded onto the system. Wary of fuelling panic surrounding this "sensitive situation," a Symantec executive explains: "When users attempt to access the PDF file, malcode (which is simply a set of software instructions) within the PDF attempts to exploit an old Adobe vulnerability (BID 33751) in order to drop malware on the local computer."
Further, a blog on the Symantec Official website refers to another campaign where the e-mail uses linked news headlines from reputed news agencies and seeks responses and user experiences to be filled in a form (with URL provided) or asks readers to write back with their e-mail address and phone number. "This time around it is an e-mail address that the spammers are more interested in collecting — perhaps as part of a harvest for their future campaigns," the blog states.
In an e-mail response to The Hindu, Prabhat Singh, senior director at McAfee Avert Labs, said domain names related to swine flu were being snapped up to host malware, launch spam and phishing attacks. The number of such sites has increased 30-fold over four days, experts claim. "In one case, a Russia-based site instructs the visitor to install a 'video codec' to view a movie. This isn't a real codec to allow viewing; instead, it is malicious software that puts the victim's computer at the beck and call of the attacker," Mr. Singh explained.
Experts advise computer users to keep all security and other software up to date and avoid opening files and e-mails from unknown sources. "Malware writers, spammers and scammers are lowlives using any high impact news story to push their wares. Users should not follow links that arrive in spam, instant messages or on social networking web sites. If they need any information on the flu situation, they can go to the World Health Organisation website or any reputable source," Mr. Singh said.
SOURCE : http://www.hindu.com/2009/05/24/stories/2009052456051500.htm
Labels: 419 Scam fraud, email scam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, spam
Posted on Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Have you been hit like millions of Facebook users by a new phishing scam that can result in crashing your computers or mobile phones and steal your passwords? If not, beware, do not open the files ending with ".at" or ".be".
The phishing scam is being run through the spam messages which steals the sensitive information of the Facebook users.
In the attack, the messages are circulated with a subject line of "Hello" and a prompt to check out "areps.at" or other URLs ending in ".at".
The mails with the subject line "Look at This" and links like -- goldbase.be, greenbuddy.be, silvertag.be, picoband.be -- leads to some malicious Web sites, which if visited, could secretly download malware onto computers through a "drive-by download" application.
The URL connectivity, before being blocked directs the visitor to a fake Facebook page and the mail ID and password are stolen as soon as it is logged-in again.
According to the All Facebook blog.Facebook, the password in such cases should be changed immediately and the same message should be sent across to one's Facebook acquaintance.
"Whoever is behind the scam has been steadily amassing a large number of e-mail addresses and passwords over the past few weeks," the blog says.
Though, Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said: "The impact of this attack or the previous ones are not widespread and only impacted a tiny fraction of a per cent of users.
"We've been updating our monitoring systems with information gleaned from the previous attacks so that each new attack is detected more quickly," he said.
The site has blocked links to the new phishing sites from being shared on Facebook and has added them to the block lists of the major browsers.
The social networking site is working with partners to have the sites taken down completely, he said adding Facebook is also cleaning up phony messages and wall posts and resetting the passwords of affected users.
"We believe the bad guys here are phishing an account and then trying those credentials on webmail providers," Schnitt said.
So, for example, if a user is compromised on Facebook and has the same login and ID password for their Gmail, the attacker may be able to intercept the Facebook password reset and compromise the account again in the future, he added.
SOURCE : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Beware-of-another-Facebook-spam-/articleshow/4574044.cms
The phishing scam is being run through the spam messages which steals the sensitive information of the Facebook users.
In the attack, the messages are circulated with a subject line of "Hello" and a prompt to check out "areps.at" or other URLs ending in ".at".
The mails with the subject line "Look at This" and links like -- goldbase.be, greenbuddy.be, silvertag.be, picoband.be -- leads to some malicious Web sites, which if visited, could secretly download malware onto computers through a "drive-by download" application.
The URL connectivity, before being blocked directs the visitor to a fake Facebook page and the mail ID and password are stolen as soon as it is logged-in again.
According to the All Facebook blog.Facebook, the password in such cases should be changed immediately and the same message should be sent across to one's Facebook acquaintance.
"Whoever is behind the scam has been steadily amassing a large number of e-mail addresses and passwords over the past few weeks," the blog says.
Though, Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said: "The impact of this attack or the previous ones are not widespread and only impacted a tiny fraction of a per cent of users.
"We've been updating our monitoring systems with information gleaned from the previous attacks so that each new attack is detected more quickly," he said.
The site has blocked links to the new phishing sites from being shared on Facebook and has added them to the block lists of the major browsers.
The social networking site is working with partners to have the sites taken down completely, he said adding Facebook is also cleaning up phony messages and wall posts and resetting the passwords of affected users.
"We believe the bad guys here are phishing an account and then trying those credentials on webmail providers," Schnitt said.
So, for example, if a user is compromised on Facebook and has the same login and ID password for their Gmail, the attacker may be able to intercept the Facebook password reset and compromise the account again in the future, he added.
SOURCE : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Beware-of-another-Facebook-spam-/articleshow/4574044.cms
Labels: 419 Scam fraud, ATM Scam, email scam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam
Posted on Sunday, June 7, 2009
It looks like the FBI has been busy lately sending e-mails to people telling them they need their assistance in an investigation.
The FBI is on a hiring spree(fbijobs.gov), but spam is not a recruiting tool.
The e-mail, pretending to be from the FBI, promises to release the money that you were promised when you were, get this, "transacting with ... some impostors claiming to be The Federal Bureau of Investigation."
The FBI Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division does not exist, the FBI says in a press release on this topic. Nor does the FBI have a unit in Nigeria - although because most of this garbage originates there, that might not be such a bad idea.
Many of the people who get these e-mails are upset by them. Here's part of an e-mail I recently received from Hector Pequeno, a fed-up reader:
"I am constantly almost daily dealing with e-mails like this. Where are they getting my address? Should I be concerned? Is there an organization I should forward these to so they would be aware? Should I just delete and ignore?"
Let me answer these questions:
Where do they get your address?
E-mail addresses are easily culled from all sorts of sources. People who enter drawings, make purchases online or sign online petitions can get their e-mail into a list sold to spam operations. Sometimes a person who legitimately has your e-mail is the victim of a computer hijacking. That lets all the people in their address book get bombarded with spam.
If your e-mail appears anywhere on the Internet, you are fair game. It's likely one of the reasons I get a few hundred spam e-mails every day.
Another way to get e-mails is through what the Federal Trade Commission has called a "dictionary attack." The spammer creates a list of letter and number strings in front of an "@" sign and common domain name. That generates millions of spam e-mails, some of which hit valid addresses.
SOURCE : http://www.news-press.com/article/20090525/COLUMNISTS40/905250359/1005/NEWS0103
The FBI is on a hiring spree(fbijobs.gov), but spam is not a recruiting tool.
The e-mail, pretending to be from the FBI, promises to release the money that you were promised when you were, get this, "transacting with ... some impostors claiming to be The Federal Bureau of Investigation."
The FBI Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division does not exist, the FBI says in a press release on this topic. Nor does the FBI have a unit in Nigeria - although because most of this garbage originates there, that might not be such a bad idea.
Many of the people who get these e-mails are upset by them. Here's part of an e-mail I recently received from Hector Pequeno, a fed-up reader:
"I am constantly almost daily dealing with e-mails like this. Where are they getting my address? Should I be concerned? Is there an organization I should forward these to so they would be aware? Should I just delete and ignore?"
Let me answer these questions:
Where do they get your address?
E-mail addresses are easily culled from all sorts of sources. People who enter drawings, make purchases online or sign online petitions can get their e-mail into a list sold to spam operations. Sometimes a person who legitimately has your e-mail is the victim of a computer hijacking. That lets all the people in their address book get bombarded with spam.
If your e-mail appears anywhere on the Internet, you are fair game. It's likely one of the reasons I get a few hundred spam e-mails every day.
Another way to get e-mails is through what the Federal Trade Commission has called a "dictionary attack." The spammer creates a list of letter and number strings in front of an "@" sign and common domain name. That generates millions of spam e-mails, some of which hit valid addresses.
SOURCE : http://www.news-press.com/article/20090525/COLUMNISTS40/905250359/1005/NEWS0103
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, email spam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, scam, spam
Posted on Thursday, June 4, 2009
Twitter has started bombarding users with unwanted text messages. First it happened to us; then we got an email tip; now there are reports on the microblogging platform itself. How costly will this get?
Twitter allows users to receive selected tweets on their cell phones if they so desire. Most users seem to rely instead on the company's website, or on applications like TweetDeck. And no wonder: if you pay per message or send and receive only a modest number of them, cell-phone text messages are astronomically expensive, byte for byte.
Twitter over the past hour or two has begun to send unsolicited texts to at least some people who didn't sign up for them (like us).
A cynic might wonder whether Twitter, which gets a cut of text-message revenue from U.S. wireless operators, engineered the "glitch" as part of its new push to drum up revenue. But longtime users of the service know it needs no ulterior motive to fail technically.
Still, the startup should make amends: It has a relationship with wireless carriers, and should leverage it to make sure affected users get full texting refunds. It's the least Silcon Valley's oh-so-perfect startup can do.
SOURCE : http://gawker.com/5261739/twitters-annoying-text+message-spam
Twitter allows users to receive selected tweets on their cell phones if they so desire. Most users seem to rely instead on the company's website, or on applications like TweetDeck. And no wonder: if you pay per message or send and receive only a modest number of them, cell-phone text messages are astronomically expensive, byte for byte.
Twitter over the past hour or two has begun to send unsolicited texts to at least some people who didn't sign up for them (like us).
A cynic might wonder whether Twitter, which gets a cut of text-message revenue from U.S. wireless operators, engineered the "glitch" as part of its new push to drum up revenue. But longtime users of the service know it needs no ulterior motive to fail technically.
Still, the startup should make amends: It has a relationship with wireless carriers, and should leverage it to make sure affected users get full texting refunds. It's the least Silcon Valley's oh-so-perfect startup can do.
SOURCE : http://gawker.com/5261739/twitters-annoying-text+message-spam
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, email scam, email spam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, spam news
Posted on Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Yahoo is testing another redesign of its home page, emphasizing news feeds and applications as well as search results.
The company is testing the most recent design with certain users, and while it's somewhat similar to Yahoo's current look and feel, it is a bit of a departure from the most recent plan for a redesign shared by Yahoo in March, as noted by PaidContent.org. For example, the new design calls out the top 10 search results at a given time in the upper right-hand corner of the site, a box that appears at the absolute bottom of Yahoo's current site and that was absent from the March mock-ups.
Yahoo also dropped the gray color on the left side rail of the page in favor of a white background, while also adding more choices for users to add feeds from their favorite Web sites and services. That rail also includes applications developed for the Yahoo page that let users check auction results on eBay, for example.
No time frame was given for the arrival of the new design, but further tweaks are probably not out of the question. Yahoo also announced that its mobile site redesign is out of beta and rolling out to a wider audience.
SOURCE : http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10249617-2.html
The company is testing the most recent design with certain users, and while it's somewhat similar to Yahoo's current look and feel, it is a bit of a departure from the most recent plan for a redesign shared by Yahoo in March, as noted by PaidContent.org. For example, the new design calls out the top 10 search results at a given time in the upper right-hand corner of the site, a box that appears at the absolute bottom of Yahoo's current site and that was absent from the March mock-ups.
Yahoo also dropped the gray color on the left side rail of the page in favor of a white background, while also adding more choices for users to add feeds from their favorite Web sites and services. That rail also includes applications developed for the Yahoo page that let users check auction results on eBay, for example.
No time frame was given for the arrival of the new design, but further tweaks are probably not out of the question. Yahoo also announced that its mobile site redesign is out of beta and rolling out to a wider audience.
SOURCE : http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10249617-2.html
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, email scam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, scam, spam
Posted on Monday, June 1, 2009
Spam now accounts for 90.4 percent of all e-mail, according to a report released Monday from security vendor Symantec. This means that 1 out of every 1.1 e-mails is junk. The report also notes that spam shot up 5.1 percent just from April to May.
Symantec's May 2009 MessageLabs Intelligence report reveals other disturbing trends, as well. Rather than just hijack disreputable Web sites, cybercriminals now favor older and well-established domains to host their malware. The report says 84.6 percent of all domains blocked for malicious content are more than a year old. One type of domain now especially vulnerable to threats is social networking, since most of the sites' content is created by users.
"Spammers using better-known and thus more widely trusted Web sites to host malware is reminiscent of the spammers who rely on well-known Web mail and social networking environments to host spam content," said Paul Wood, Symantec's MessageLabs Intelligence senior analyst. "The trustworthy older domains can be compromised through SQL injection attacks while newer sites are more likely to be flagged as suspicious--a temporary site set up with the sole purpose of distributing spam and malware--and thus faster to get shut down."
Where you live also determines when you're spammed, says the report. For people in the U.S., spam hits its peak between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. and then drops overnight. Europeans get a solid stream of spam throughout the day, while users in Asia-Pacific countries find most spam waiting for them in the morning. One reason for this trend, says the report, is that most spammers are at their busiest during U.S. working hours.
The popular CAPTCHA program, which asks the user to type in a series of random characters, is no longer proving as effective as once hoped. Many Web sites have relied on CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) to ensure that accounts are created by actual human beings.
But criminals have now succeeded in generating profiles with random names, apparently by using automated CAPTCHA breakers. The report notes that some major Web sites are now exploring other ways to block automated accounts, such as using photographic images that a user must analyze.
SOURCE : http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10249172-83.html
Symantec's May 2009 MessageLabs Intelligence report reveals other disturbing trends, as well. Rather than just hijack disreputable Web sites, cybercriminals now favor older and well-established domains to host their malware. The report says 84.6 percent of all domains blocked for malicious content are more than a year old. One type of domain now especially vulnerable to threats is social networking, since most of the sites' content is created by users.
"Spammers using better-known and thus more widely trusted Web sites to host malware is reminiscent of the spammers who rely on well-known Web mail and social networking environments to host spam content," said Paul Wood, Symantec's MessageLabs Intelligence senior analyst. "The trustworthy older domains can be compromised through SQL injection attacks while newer sites are more likely to be flagged as suspicious--a temporary site set up with the sole purpose of distributing spam and malware--and thus faster to get shut down."
Where you live also determines when you're spammed, says the report. For people in the U.S., spam hits its peak between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. and then drops overnight. Europeans get a solid stream of spam throughout the day, while users in Asia-Pacific countries find most spam waiting for them in the morning. One reason for this trend, says the report, is that most spammers are at their busiest during U.S. working hours.
The popular CAPTCHA program, which asks the user to type in a series of random characters, is no longer proving as effective as once hoped. Many Web sites have relied on CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) to ensure that accounts are created by actual human beings.
But criminals have now succeeded in generating profiles with random names, apparently by using automated CAPTCHA breakers. The report notes that some major Web sites are now exploring other ways to block automated accounts, such as using photographic images that a user must analyze.
SOURCE : http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10249172-83.html
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, ATM Scam, email scam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, scam, spam
Posted on Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The CBCID (Crime Branch - Criminal Investigation Dept) police have arrested a Nigerian national for masterminding an on-line lottery fraud along with his friends and cheated a resident of Kalpakkam (India) for Rs. 14.68 lakh.
The Nigerian spotted to be Festos alias Murphy Vazigo Agbaifa (aged 38) of Nasik who was already been arrested by the police of Mumbai and lodged in the Nasik central prison was again arrested on May 12th and brought to Chennai on Wednesday.
According to Crime Branch Dept sources, K. Ramamoorthy of Kalpakkam in the Kancheepuram district had given a complaint about the agency, which he had received spam e-mails on December 2007, alleged to have been sent from the "Yahoo Lottery Award" congratulating him for winning the online lottery worth of Rs. 4 crore. The charged persons have sent emails asking Ramamoorthy to pay a sum of Rs.14.68 lakh regarding service and transferring claims into different bank accounts.
After transferring the amount, Festos neither sent the lottery awarded money and neither refunded his money.
In the Investigation it was discovered that the bank accounts were opened in the name of different persons in New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai. The Cyber Crime Cell Investigators on 4th march arrested one of the 14 accused R. Stephen (alias) Vijay Stephen in Chennai.
Mukesh Anand Chudasama another accused of Thana, Mumbai, was kept custody on May 7 regarding his scam. The other account-holders addresses were been verified in Mumbai and found to be fake. On further investigation it was revealed that Festos masterminded this crime and wielded along with his friends in Mumbai and other places and cheated innocent people.
Based on the information that he was already been arrested by the Mumbai police in associated with another online fraud crime, police arrested Festos in the Nasik prison.
The Nigerian spotted to be Festos alias Murphy Vazigo Agbaifa (aged 38) of Nasik who was already been arrested by the police of Mumbai and lodged in the Nasik central prison was again arrested on May 12th and brought to Chennai on Wednesday.
According to Crime Branch Dept sources, K. Ramamoorthy of Kalpakkam in the Kancheepuram district had given a complaint about the agency, which he had received spam e-mails on December 2007, alleged to have been sent from the "Yahoo Lottery Award" congratulating him for winning the online lottery worth of Rs. 4 crore. The charged persons have sent emails asking Ramamoorthy to pay a sum of Rs.14.68 lakh regarding service and transferring claims into different bank accounts.
After transferring the amount, Festos neither sent the lottery awarded money and neither refunded his money.
In the Investigation it was discovered that the bank accounts were opened in the name of different persons in New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai. The Cyber Crime Cell Investigators on 4th march arrested one of the 14 accused R. Stephen (alias) Vijay Stephen in Chennai.
Mukesh Anand Chudasama another accused of Thana, Mumbai, was kept custody on May 7 regarding his scam. The other account-holders addresses were been verified in Mumbai and found to be fake. On further investigation it was revealed that Festos masterminded this crime and wielded along with his friends in Mumbai and other places and cheated innocent people.
Based on the information that he was already been arrested by the Mumbai police in associated with another online fraud crime, police arrested Festos in the Nasik prison.
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, ATM Scam, email scam, email spam, lottery scam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, scam, spam, spam news
Posted on Thursday, May 21, 2009
Verizon Wireless is continuing its crackdown on wireless scams with a Tuesday lawsuit against several companies accused of sending unsolicited, mortgage-related text messages.
Verizon filed suit against Pennsylvania-based Money Warehouse, Inc., known as All State Mortgage Lender, and other unnamed companies for allegedly sending 800,000 spam text messages to Verizon Wireless customers and employees beginning in February 2009.
Verizon filed suit in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., accusing the companies of violating the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which bans the use of an auto-dialer to contact wireless customers.
"At a time when many Americans are concerned about making their mortgage payments, these types of unwanted text messages, from unknown senders, can be upsetting," Steven E. Zipperstein, vice president and general counsel at Verizon Wireless, said in a statement. "Our company will continue to work diligently to stop these people who break the law and harass our customers."
Late last month, Verizon reached a $50,000 settlement with St. Louis-based National Auto Warranty Services and Florida-based Explicit Media for making illegal telemarketing calls promoting car warranties.
SOURCE : http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2346542,00.asp
Verizon filed suit against Pennsylvania-based Money Warehouse, Inc., known as All State Mortgage Lender, and other unnamed companies for allegedly sending 800,000 spam text messages to Verizon Wireless customers and employees beginning in February 2009.
Verizon filed suit in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., accusing the companies of violating the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which bans the use of an auto-dialer to contact wireless customers.
"At a time when many Americans are concerned about making their mortgage payments, these types of unwanted text messages, from unknown senders, can be upsetting," Steven E. Zipperstein, vice president and general counsel at Verizon Wireless, said in a statement. "Our company will continue to work diligently to stop these people who break the law and harass our customers."
Late last month, Verizon reached a $50,000 settlement with St. Louis-based National Auto Warranty Services and Florida-based Explicit Media for making illegal telemarketing calls promoting car warranties.
SOURCE : http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2346542,00.asp
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, email scam, lottery scam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, scam, spam, spam news
Posted on Thursday, May 7, 2009
Botnet criminals have taken control of almost 12 million new IP addresses since January, according to a quarterly report from anti-virus firm, McAfee. The United States has the largest number of botnet-controlled machines, with 18 percent of them based here.
The number of zombie machines represents a 50-percent rise over last year.
Researchers attribute the explosion to botnet controllers trying to recoup spamming abilities after authorities took down a hosting facility last year that catered to international firms and syndicates involved in spamming and botnet control.
Researchers estimated that spam levels dropped about 60 percent after the hosting facility was closed. Last year at this time, an average of 153 billion spam messages were sent per day, while numbers in March this year show that the rate was on average about 100 billion messages per day. But researchers say the spam numbers will return to normal as criminals re-build their networks of captured computers.
"The question is not whether spam will return to previous levels, but rather
when it will return," the report says. "There is data regarding new zombie and botnet creation that suggest the time may not be too far in the future."
In terms of the numbers of zombie machines by country, China came in second after the United States, with about 13 percent. After this, the numbers dropped precipitously to 6 percent in Australia, 5.3 percent in Germany and 4.7 percent in the United Kingdom. Russia, where many cyber criminal syndicates are based, accounted for only 2.5 percent of the compromised computers.
But botnets aren't only used for spam. A separate report was issued this week by researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara who spent 10 days in control of the so-called Torpig botnet and observed 70 gigabytes of data being stolen from computers remotely-controlled by the botnet, including financial data. The harvested data included 1.2 million Windows passwords and 1.2 million e-mail items, such as e-mail addresses and log-in credentials.
"In ten days, Torpig obtained the credentials of 8,310 accounts at 410 different [financial] institutions," the researchers write. "The top targeted institutions were PayPal (1,770 accounts), Poste Italiane (765), Capital One (314), E*Trade (304), and Chase (217)."
Torpig's malware attacks e-mail clients and other applications to record every keystroke entered by a victim, including passwords before they're encrypted. The purloined data is uploaded every 20 minutes in bundles sent to the botnet’s controllers.
The botnet is controlled by the Mebroot rootkit, which "takes control of a machine by replacing the system’s Master Boot Record (MBR)," the researchers write. "This allows Mebroot to be executed at boot time, before the operating system is loaded, and to remain undetected by most anti-virus tools."
SOURCE : http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/botnets-took-control-of-12-million-new-ips-this-year/
The number of zombie machines represents a 50-percent rise over last year.
Researchers attribute the explosion to botnet controllers trying to recoup spamming abilities after authorities took down a hosting facility last year that catered to international firms and syndicates involved in spamming and botnet control.
Researchers estimated that spam levels dropped about 60 percent after the hosting facility was closed. Last year at this time, an average of 153 billion spam messages were sent per day, while numbers in March this year show that the rate was on average about 100 billion messages per day. But researchers say the spam numbers will return to normal as criminals re-build their networks of captured computers.
"The question is not whether spam will return to previous levels, but rather
when it will return," the report says. "There is data regarding new zombie and botnet creation that suggest the time may not be too far in the future."
In terms of the numbers of zombie machines by country, China came in second after the United States, with about 13 percent. After this, the numbers dropped precipitously to 6 percent in Australia, 5.3 percent in Germany and 4.7 percent in the United Kingdom. Russia, where many cyber criminal syndicates are based, accounted for only 2.5 percent of the compromised computers.
But botnets aren't only used for spam. A separate report was issued this week by researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara who spent 10 days in control of the so-called Torpig botnet and observed 70 gigabytes of data being stolen from computers remotely-controlled by the botnet, including financial data. The harvested data included 1.2 million Windows passwords and 1.2 million e-mail items, such as e-mail addresses and log-in credentials.
"In ten days, Torpig obtained the credentials of 8,310 accounts at 410 different [financial] institutions," the researchers write. "The top targeted institutions were PayPal (1,770 accounts), Poste Italiane (765), Capital One (314), E*Trade (304), and Chase (217)."
Torpig's malware attacks e-mail clients and other applications to record every keystroke entered by a victim, including passwords before they're encrypted. The purloined data is uploaded every 20 minutes in bundles sent to the botnet’s controllers.
The botnet is controlled by the Mebroot rootkit, which "takes control of a machine by replacing the system’s Master Boot Record (MBR)," the researchers write. "This allows Mebroot to be executed at boot time, before the operating system is loaded, and to remain undetected by most anti-virus tools."
SOURCE : http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/botnets-took-control-of-12-million-new-ips-this-year/
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, Nigerianspam
Posted on Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Aware of public reports concerning a new variant of the Conficker/Downadup worm, named Conficker B++. This variant propagates itself via multiple methods, including exploitation of the previously patched vulnerability addressed in MS08-067, password guessing, and the infection of removable media. Most significantly, Conficker B++ implements a new backdoor with "auto-update" functionality, allowing machines compromised by the new variant to have additional malicious code installed on them. According to Microsoft, there is no indication that systems infected with previous variants of Conficker can automatically be re-infected with the B++ variant.
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, ATM Scam, email scam, email spam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, scam, spam
Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Adobe has released a Security Bulletin to alert users of a vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat. This vulnerability may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial-of-service condition. Adobe indicates that it has received reports of active exploitation.
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, ATM Scam, email scam, email spam, lottery scam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, spam, spam news
Posted on Friday, February 20, 2009
Microsoft has released updates to address vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, Exchange Server, and SQL Server as part of the Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for February 2009. These vulnerabilities may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code.
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, ATM Scam, email scam, email spam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, scam, spam, spam news
Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2009
Hewlett-Packard has released Security Bulletin HPSBPI02398 SSRT080166 to address a vulnerability in multiple HP printers. This vulnerability may allow an unauthorized remote attacker to gain access to files.
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, ATM Scam, email scam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, scam, spam, spam news
Posted on Thursday, February 12, 2009
Novell has released updates for GroupWise 7 and 8 to address multiple vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code, compromise a GroupWise account, conduct cross-site scripting attacks, or obtain sensitive information.
Labels: 419 scam, 419 Scam fraud, ATM Scam, Email fraud, email scam, email spam, lottery scam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, scam, spam, spam news
Posted on Sunday, February 8, 2009
Nigerianspam.com is aware of public reports of malicious code circulating via spam email messages related to Valentine's Day. These messages contain a link to a website that contains several images of hearts and instructs users to choose one image. If users click on one of the images, they will be prompted to download an executable file. Reports indicate that the executable files could be named: youandme.exe, onlyyou.exe, you.exe, and meandyou.exe (please note that these file names may change at any time). If users accept the download, malicious code may be installed onto their systems.
Labels: 419 Scam fraud, Email fraud, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, scam, spam
Posted on Thursday, February 5, 2009
Students receive spam e-mail
Spamming is an easy way for hackers to generate money - however, in order to do so, hackers must avoid the anti-spam programs on computers by first "phishing." According to Microsoft.com, "Often phishing scams rely on placing links in e-mail messages, on Web sites, or in instant messages that seem to come from a service that you trust, like your bank, credit card company, or social networking site." After phishing, the hacker gains access to a legitimate account to start sending thousands of messages.
"The best way to spam is to use a legitimate e-mail account in an established organization - like Lawrence," said Armstrong. "Essentially, someone, usually pretending to be from the IT department, asks for the recipient to send them their username and password. Once they have this information, the 'bad guys' use it to take over the compromised e-mail account, and then they send thousands of spam messages."
According to Armstrong, the phishing attempts were targeted at the entire Lawrence community. However, only users who respond to the e-mails end up with compromised email accounts. In addition to compromising e-mail accounts, the spam slows the Lawrence network, wastes ITS staff resources and slows down the delivery of e-mail messages.
Although phishing has been a problem in the Lawrence network in the past several years, the recent amount of it is higher than normal. However, Armstrong noted that none of the phishing or spamming attempts have come from inside campus.
An email from ITS warned students to be wary of opening messages and sending personal information in an e-mail. If students have any doubts about the authenticity of an email, they should forward it to ITS or delete it. If a student has opened and replied to one of these messages, he or she should change his or her password and notify ITS immediately.
"The most important thing is to not give your username and password to anyone - especially not in an e-mail message," Armstrong said.
SOURCE : http://media.www.lawrentian.com/media/storage/paper409/news/2009/05/22/News/Students.Receive.Spam.EMail-3743135.shtml
Labels: 419 Scam fraud, email scam, Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Spam, spam news
Posted on Monday, June 15, 2009