Cant Keep Quiet!

Last time I wrote about this I X'ed out the name of the legitimate company that the fraudulent e-mail claimed to represent. This time I'm including the name since it's the second one I've received supposedly from this company.

Be aware, I don't blame the company at all for these e-mails. This company's reputation is basically being attacked by these jerks. I'm including it so that if anyone else gets a similar e-mail they'll know that it's junk and delete it.

I'm also posting this because the fraudulent asses are really pressing the "Danger! Fraud!" angle to try to legitimize their pitch.

The subject for this e-mail was "IMPORTANT NOTICE! PLEASE READ! "PHISHING" ALERT"

This is the e-mail

IMPORTANT NOTICE! PLEASE READ! "PHISHING" ALERT

Recently, members of the Susquehanna Bancshares, Inc. received a phony email which looks as if it was sent by Susquehanna, and directing them to a web site that is a counterfeit copy of the real Susquehanna Bancshares, Inc. web site. There, members were asked to input their credit card numbers and PIN. DO NOT DIVULGE THIS INFORMATION!

We will never send you an email asking for this sensitive information, which, by the way, we already have. The email itself is not harmful, and can safely be deleted like any other piece of junk email. Authorities are currently working to shut down the counterfeit site, which is located overseas. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter!

For your security, your account has been temporarily locked out of the system. You will not be able to make purchases with your card while this lock is in place. Please call customer service line at 1-800-643-1651 for further assistance.

Copyright © 2008 Susquehanna Bancshares, Inc. | Susquehanna Bancshares, Inc. 26 N. Cedar Street Lititz, PA 17543-7000

The address and the company both are legitimate. They are the only things in the e-mail that are legitimate. The phone number is not a Susquehanna Bancshares, In. number. That was easily verified by going to the company's website.

The website has a warning about phishing attempts and actually provides a good deal of information about various ways people might try to steal your identity. Susquehanna also asks that if you get any e-mails claiming to be from them to forward them to reportfraud@susquehanna.net.

If you get an e-mail like this from a company that you do business with, don't call the number in the e-mail. Find a statement from the company and get the number from the statement. That way you know the number is legitimate. If you get a phone call making a similar claim don't give the caller any information. Once again, you want to get a bill and get the number from there to call back.

Sadly, we can't trust anyone these days. Too many assholes are out there trying to steal other people's identities.

Technorati Tags: vishing

There's a type of "phishing" that's on the rise. It's called "vishing."

"Vishing" occurs when you receive a automated phone call or an e-mail that says that your account or debit card has been compromised in some way. You could be told the card will be "temporarily locked out of the system" until you resolve the problem. You're given a number to call to resolve the problem.

The number takes you to an automated answering program that asks for your account number or debit card number to verify the account.   You will probably also be asked for the same type of information requested in typical "phishing" scams.

If you receive an e-mail, it may start out like this one

We are aware that some of our members have received fraudulent e-mails stating to click on a link to address an issue with their account. Please do not respond to this e-mail. It is not from XXXXXXXXXXX.

Be warned, it has even been reported that large scale "vishing" operations may have set up a "call center" with people pretending to work for the company in question.

I received one of these e-mails today.  It was from a bank that I had never heard of and it was sent to an e-mail account that I rarely use.

By the way, it was sent to a gmail account.  I have two gmail accounts.  One I use for this blog.  The other is the one I rarely use.  Neither account is used for personal information.

I found this advice when I was looking into information about "vishing"

If you have a question concerning your account or credit/debit card, you should contact your bank using a telephone number obtained independently such as; from your statement, a telephone book, or another independent means.

It is excellent advice.  You should do that  if the questionable request comes by e-mail or phone.

Technorati Tags: vishing

This is an interesting video showing just how far fox news will go to Fix the News.

Technorati Tags: Fox News, Frank Luntz

It's official, if you get any e-mail with that subject or a similar one that is from .hk, it's trying to get you to download malware.

When I posted about this on Thursday I reported that I couldn't find anything definite. One thing I also did was send a copy of the e-mail to the Urban Legends Reference Pages aka Snopes.com.

In today's "What's New" section at Snopes.com it has information about this incident. This is what they had to say

Many web sites offer a service that allows a user to send a customized "greeting card" (or "postcard") to a relative, friend, or acquaintance, delivered as an e-mail message containing a hyperlink which the recipient follows to visit the originating site and view the card. Sending out phony e-card notifications is therefore an effective method of camouflaging viruses and inducing unwitting recipients into clicking on links that install malicious programs onto their computers.

A wave of malicious messages (like the one reproduced above) sent out in June 2007 employed that very technique, arriving in inboxes bearing subject lines such as "You've received a postcard from a family member!" in an attempt to induce recipients into clicking links that install a variant of the Storm Trojan, "an aggressive piece of malware that has been hijacking computers to serve as attacker bots" since early in 2007.

On December 29, 2006 I tired to leave a comment on a friend's blog. The comment was denied because my IP was a spammer.

A visit to a site that lists IPs that have been flagged for spamming confirmed that my IP had been flagged.

WTF!

I spent the next few hours before I went to see Lewis Black trying to track down any trojan or other program that someone could be using to send out that crap from my IP.

I found. . . nothing.

I scanned my computer for exploits…everything was clean.

I scanned my computer for AnalogX (an open proxy that cannot be made secure)… not on my computer.

Wingate? Same results. Squid? Same results.

I ran Netsky, MyDoom, and Beagle removal tools. All three worms were not found on my computer.

I ran WebDefender (anti-virus program from Microsoft), clean.

I ran SpyBot Search & Destroy and found a bunch of tracking cookies but not much else.

I paid for and downloaded Ad-Aware SE Plus and ran that program. If found a lot of suspicious possibilities mostly associated with IE.
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Have you noticed that you're getting more junk e-mail lately? More spam is getting past your filters offering to sell V1úgra (Viagra) or stocks? If so, you're not alone.

According to U.S. email security company Postini 7 billion spam e-mails have been sent worldwide so far this month. That's nearly 3 times the number sent in June (2.5 billion). The company expects the amount to go even higher as we get closer to Christmas.

The rise is due in part to a computer program called "Stration" can hijack your home computer. This "Trojan horse" program will then force your computer to send out the e-mails for the spammers. These "Trojan horse" type programs allow gangs of spammers to create "zombie networks" or "botnets" which can literally link hundreds of thousands of computers without their owners being aware of the problem. This allows spammers to send millions of spam e-mails with anonymity.

Creating laws against spammers doesn't work. The laws are specific to a state or country and have little effect on spammers working far away from their victims.

The only thing that will work is for people to stop buying from spammers.

The spammers have a lot of incentive to continue sending their e-mails. It costs them next to nothing to send millions of e-mails. If even a handful of people fall into their trap the spammer has made a profit.

As a result, as anti-spam filters become more sophisticated so do spammers. Instead of getting a message about Viagra, a red-flag for anti-spam filters, you'll get a message for V1u gra which slips through the filters. Another tactic is to send the spam message in a graphic which is harder for the filters to scan.

So what can you do?

Make sure you have an up-to-date anti-virus program installed on your computer. Make sure you keep it up to date since new Trojan horse programs are being created all the time.

Never reveal financial details to a website due to an e-mail asking you to "update your records." If you get an e-mail from what looks like your bank or any other reputable organization asking for this information it is a scam.

Never, ever, respond to spam e-mails. As long as the spammers can find even a handful of people to reply to their tricks, they will keep sending their garbage out.

Palm Beach County's elections supervisor received a complaint back in February that Ann Coulter voted in the wrong precinct for a Palm Beach Town Council election on February 7th. On March 27th the Elections Office sent Coulter a letter asking her to clarify her address. The letter included the warning that she could "face the possibility of her voter registration being rescinded." Coulter didn't respond so three additional letters were sent to Coulter and her attorney.

To date, neither Coulter nor her attorney have supplied the requested information.

Coulter's attorney did send a letter to Arthur Anderson, the Elections' Supervisor, stating that the attorney would discuss the matter in person or on the phone only. The attorney also complained that information about the case had been given to the media. Anderson's reply was that the situation had to be discussed in writing.

Because Coulter has not responded to attempts to clarify her legal residence, Anderson has said that her case will probably be turned over to prosecutors by Friday. If Coulter is found guilty of knowingly voting in the wrong precinct (i.e. fraud) she could be sentenced to up to 5 years in prison.

If you think that the Elections' Supervisor isn't treating Coulter fairly by not allowing her attorney to discuss the case in person or on the phone, he's actually treating Coulter as he would treat any person that has had a similar complaint filed against them.

Personally, the fact that she won't reply to this request speaks louder about the validity of her address. But then again, I've always thought the nasty witch was a fraud.

Obviously these cretins catch some people with these scams or they wouldn't keep trying them. I just wish they would stop sending them to me.

Typically when I get e-mail from a bank I know it's fraud and I delete it immediately. I belong to a credit union, therefore no bank has a reason to get in touch with me about my account. This latest one, however, claimed to be from the National Credit Union Administration, an independent federal agency that charters and supervises federal credit unions.

The first thing that tipped me off was the request for me to click on a link and verify my account information. That's the oldest trick in the phishers' book so there's no way I'm falling for that. Then I checked the e-mail address. Instead of being a .gov like any government group it was a .com.

Then I looked up the National Credit Union Administration's site and saw a box on the upper right with the words "Internet/E-mail Fraud Alert." When I clicked on the link I read this:

Recently, there have been multiple e-mail fraud attempts, known as "Phishing”, that were initiated via e-mail sent to both the general public and to some credit union members that appeared to be from NCUA. This false e-mail asked for the recipient to click on a link to verify their credit union account registration. If the recipient proceeded to do so, the link directed them to a false website and asked for their credit union account number and PIN, along with other personal information.

NCUA does not ask credit unions members for such personal information. Anyone who receives an e-mail that purports to be from NCUA and asks for account information should consider it to be a fraudulent attempt to obtain their personal account data for an illegal purpose and should not follow the instructions in the e-mail.

If you responded to such an e-mail and provided any confidential account information, please notify your credit union immediately of the scheme. You should also change your account’s PIN, and take any additional action recommended by your credit union to protect your account.

If you feel that you have received a fraudulent phishing e-mail purportedly from NCUA please forward the entire e-mail message to Phishing@ncua.gov

Additionally, you can file formal complaints concerning any suspected fraudulent e-mail with the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC) at ncua@ic3.gov. The IFCC is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National White Collar Crime Center.

Of course, it just confirmed what I already knew.

I don't think this can be said enough. Never believe any e-mail that claims to be a banking institution and needs your account information. They are just trying to steal your money and your identity. If no one fell for these tricks, these cretins would stop sending out these phisihing attempts.

When I got home today an envelope awaited me that said

Response of Record Must Be Filed

Return at Once

I opened it and inside I found this letter

Sworn to secrecy? Because I won something? Since when?

Those were my first thoughts upon opening this letter. I hadn't even read the rest and already alarms were sounding in my head.

At the bottom of the letter I saw

Yep, I'd found it. The catch! I only needed to send Las Vegas Actionable Award Program $20 to get my money. Like that was going to happen!

Then I read a little more closely.

LVAAP is a service offered to our customers that provides information on available sweepstakes that are open to the public for entry. Subscribers are solely responsible for investigating, viewing, and complying with any and all rules, restrictions, requirements, or provisions set forth in all sweepstakes.

Ah, now I see. I give them $20 and they give me a list of sweepstakes I could enter. Hell, I just Googled the word sweepstakes and got 50,300,000 results in .20 seconds. That doesn't included the Sponsored Links.

If you get something like this in the mail throw it away. They're hoping that you won't read the small print, but will instead send them $20 for your supposed millions. If you do read the small print, they are hoping that you won't know that you can do a search on Google and get the same information they will send you.

When ever you get anything in the mail (snail or e-mail) that looks too good to be true look it over very carefully. The vast majority of offerings that look to good to be true are fraud. Personally, I think they all are fraud.

If you get a letter saying you've won something but need to send in money for processing. . . it's a fraud.

If someone calls you at home and says you have won something and they just need your bank account information to pay a processing fee before they send it to you DON'T! Not only is this a fraud, these people are stealing your identity.
A little suspicion can be healthy. At least for your bank account.

I received an e-mail with the subject Unauthorized Access Report (KMM9755003V34721L0KM) today.

The contents of the e-mail stated

You have added accessdenied11@aol.com as a new email address for your PayPal account.

If you did not authorize this change or if you need assistance with your account, please contact PayPal customer service at:

http://www.paypalonlineupdate.info/index.htm?row/wf/f=ap_email

Thank you for using PayPal!

The PayPal Team

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and choose the "Help" link in the header of any page.

————————————

PROTECT YOUR PASSWORD

NEVER give your password to anyone and ONLY log in at https://www.paypal.com/. Protect yourself against fraudulent websites by opening a new web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) and typing in the PayPal URL every time you log in to your account.

————————————-

PayPal Email ID PP007

Looks legit, doesn't it? It's not.

A legitimate e-mail from paypal would have had this subject

New email address added to your PayPal account

And would have read

Dear Firstname Lastname,

You have added newe-mail@newe-mail.com as a new email address for your PayPal account.

If you did not authorize this change or if you need assistance with your account, please contact PayPal customer service at:

https://www.paypal.com/us/wf/f=ap_email

Thank you for using PayPal!

The PayPal Team

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and click the Help link located in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

—————————————————————-

PROTECT YOUR PASSWORD

NEVER give your password to anyone, including PayPal employees. Protect yourself against fraudulent websites by opening a new web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) and typing in the PayPal URL every time you log in to your account.

—————————————————————-

PayPal Email ID PP007

There are very few differences between the two e-mails other than the subject. The real e-mail from PayPal is addressed directly to me while the fake one is not. Another difference is that the fake one has the real url for PayPal in the area under Protect Your Password while the real one does not.

The biggest and most telling difference, though, is the URL given to click if you need assistance. The real one starts with https://www.paypal.com/ while the fake one starts with http://www.paypalonlineupdate.info/.

According to PayPal, legitimate e-mails from PayPal will ask you to click on a link with https://www.paypal.com/ in the beginning. If you're asked to click on anything else it is a fraudulent request.

So who does http://www.paypalonlineupdate.info/ belong to? According to Web Whois this url is owned by someone claiming to be Peter Jaly from Australia. His e-mail is woolleyc1949@yahoo.com.

I'd send him an e-mail but I don't want him to have verification of my e-mail address.