Scam

Malvertising an Ever-expanding Threat

As if we don’t already have enough to deal with, it seems that malvertising–a technique where malicious code is placed in an online ad to either mislead the user or infect their computer—is on the rise. Microsoft recently filed five lawsuits against unnamed individuals accusing them of posting ads containing malicious and deceptive code on its MSN advertising network. And when Microsoft stands up and takes notice against a threat, you know it has some teeth.

The lawsuits Microsoft filed allege that individuals doing business as Soft Solutions, Direct Ad, “qiweroqw.com” (that’s a randomly generated name if there ever was one), ITmeter INC, and “ote2008.info” used malverstisements to either spread malicious code or deceive users into visiting websites that peddle scareware. Microsoft hopes that by filing civil suits in the U.S., the individuals responsible will be discovered and enjoined from continuing to post malvertising.

Recall that last week, as reported in The Register, an ad appeared on the New York Times web site offering a virus scan that then attempted to sell scareware to the user (“NYT scareware scam linked to click fraud botnet”).

As always, I recommend using a secure browser (Firefox with NoScript) and keeping your OS and security software up to date. Oh, yes, and a healthy serving of general caution couldn’t hurt.

Caveat araneo-fluitator! (Let the web-surfer beware!)

What do you think? Leave a comment!

Twitter Security: TwitBlock Blocks the Spammers

Besides being a security Geek, I’m also an Internet marketer (no, not the bad kind—the good kind—I actually try to help people with what I sell). Twitter, at first blush, appears to be a great way to get your message out; it probably is, if done right, but it’s also easily abused. Yes, Twitter gets spam, too. The spammers are relatively easy to spot; you see them sending out multiple marketing messages in rapid succession, often using different profiles for the same message.

Here’s the rub: Because Twitter only allows 140 characters per tweet, the URLs are always shortened, therefore it’s difficult to identify their target. My policy is to never click on a link in a tweet from someone I don’t know, especially when I see them sending multiple tweets trying to get me to take action of some sort. That’s a dead giveaway that the person or persons controlling the profile are spammers or scammers.

Enter TwitBlock, a junk filter and bulk blocking tool for Twitter users. Here’s what they say:

You may think you have a loyal following of people who find you interesting, or amusing, but they’re probably not all real people. Among your followers will be a wide spectrum of fully automated, or computer aided Twitter accounts. They will range from reputable companies looking to profile and market to you, to fake profiles directing you to adult websites. At the very worst you will find the spammers and phishing gangs - the same junk you get in your email inbox, designed to sell you fake pharmaceuticals, or trick you into parting with your passwords or credit card numbers.

An easy way to spot the spammers on your own is to look for duplicate profile images. I have my own handsome mug posted on my Twitter profile and I’m sure no one else is using it. Spammers tend to use pics of attractive women, often “R” rated, or generic photos. TwitBlock maintains a list of the top 20 duplicate profile pics (Warning: some are inappropriate for young viewers!)

The application is still in alpha, but consider testing it. Just give it some thought before you block “Annette552” who may just be your next door neighbor in disguise, but who is more likely to be a spammer out to get your credit card info. You be the judge.

Video: I Go Chop Your Dollar

This video is a good example of how not all the effects of crime are bad. After all, if we didn’t have Nigerian 419 scammers, we wouldn’t have a song about the infamous Nigerian 419 scams that haunt email inboxes these days. Lyrics are a little hard to pick out, but the chorus repeats enough that you’ll eventually get it. It’s a catchy tune. Perfect to lighten things up after a serious month of fighting security threats.

Enjoy!

I Go Chop Your Dollar

Cheers!
Kenny

Fraud Alert: eBay, craigslist Broken?

Bruce Schneier’s June 19, 2009 post Fraud on eBay stands as a testament to the fact that all is not well with the online auction giant.

I expected selling my computer on eBay to be easy.

Attempt 1: I listed it. Within hours, someone bought it — from a hacked account, as eBay notified me, cancelling the sale.

Attempt 2: I listed it again. Within hours, someone bought it, and asked me to send it to her via FedEx overnight. The buyer sent payment via PayPal immediately, and then — near as I could tell — immediately opened a dispute with PayPal so that the funds were put on hold. And then she sent me an e-mail saying “I paid you, now send me the computer.” But PayPal was faster than she expected, I think. At the same time, I received an e-mail from PayPal saying that I might have received a payment that the account holder did not authorize, and that I shouldn’t ship the item until the investigation is complete.

That’s one example of eBay fraud. Another report in The Consumerist, “It’s Now Completely Impossible To Sell A Laptop On Ebay,” shows another variation, clearly a Nigerian scam:

So I re-listed the item. This time, I lowered the minimum bid and paid for the ‘featured item’ option (which I thought was a stupid idea, but the only way to get my auction seen by any appreciable audience). This time, the auction ended without incident. I got an email from the bidder telling me that he was glad to have won the auction, and was excited for me to ship it… To Nigeria.

Let it be known here that though I may not be the smartest person in the world, I’m not stupid. His email went on to explain (in poor English) that he was ‘on business trip to the Nigeria,’ and that he was willing to pay me $1000 through PayPal for the laptop. Shortly thereafter I received an email from ‘PayPal’ (who is now apparently sending out their customer service emails from gMail), stating that I had received a payment, but that it would not show up in my account until I emailed them back the tracking number for the parcel. Very clever, but once again, I’m not stupid.

While I haven’t had this type of problem on eBay, I have experienced similar fraud on Craig’s list. Here’s a short excerpt from one of the emails I received from the fraudster (reportedly sent by USPS):

Thanks you for using Postal Money Order, The payment for your merchandise has been paid for,we have your $500:00USD money order sent to you by the buyer of your item Lewis Jack in our database, as soon as the item is shipped, please forward us with the shipping tracking number, so your $500:00USD money order can be mailed to your address, your money order is secure and save.

We will be glad to inform you that the payment sent to you by Lewis Jack has been processed and verified, your payment is now on hold for 48 hours from the period of time you recieve this email, we will be sending you a shipment notification email as soon as we recieve the shipment tracking number for the item your buyer purchased.

Based on the blatant outpoints in grammar and punctuation, it’s pretty obvious that this didn’t come from the United States Postal Service. It’s clearly a scam and I would never see payment if I were stupid enough to ship the item.

I’m about to list a rather expensive router on eBay and if I have any experiences similar to those of Mr. Schneier and the other gentleman, I’ll post details here.

It appears, though, that unless you’re selling low value or garage sale class items, the watchwords are: “Caveat venditor” (let the seller beware).

Accused Spam King Alan Ralsky Pleads Guilty

Once again, I’m behind on the news. This Security Fix report is almost a week old:

Alan Ralsky, a 64-year-old Michigan man that federal investigators say was among the world’s top spam kingpins, pleaded guilty on Monday to running a multi-million dollar international stock fraud scam powered by junk e-mail.

Ralsky … and his son-in-law and chief financial officer Scott K. Bradley, 38, also of Michigan, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and to violate the CAN-SPAM Act.

Under the terms of his plea agreement, Ralsky faces a federal prison sentence of 87 months and a fine of $1 million. He allegedly earned up to $3 million on the Chinese penny stock scam that he promoted using junk mail sent out by various botnets. It’s interesting that the plea agreement doesn’t call for the forfeiture of his profits. So, he’ll spend his time in a minimum-security “camp” at taxpayer expense and, probably get released well before his full sentence is up the while earning interest on the money he has squirreled away somewhere.

BTW, my apologies for being lax in keeping this blog up to date. I do have an excuse: I tore ligaments in my left hip and have been unable to sit, stand or lie down for the better part of two weeks.  Look for a more regular posting schedule next month.

Spam, Phishing, and Malware Related to Recent Celebrity Deaths

Michael Jackson malware? Farrah Fawcett phishing attempts? Billy Mays spam? Ed McMahon notifies you—from the other side of the grave–that you’ve just won the million-dollar Publisher’s Clearinghouse (but you have to send him some money, first)? Yes, expect it. US-CERT is monitoring reports of an increased number of spam campaigns, phishing attacks, and malicious code targeting the recent deaths. Here’s a typical example:

To: <redacted>
Subject: Confidential===Michael Jackson
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:25:50 –0400

Confidential
Vital informations after the death of Michael Jackson’s I really need some one trusted & secrective to speak with with informations i have in my possession before its too late Kindly reply me and i will immediately respond back,Its for just secret between both of us.

Notice the blatant misspellings, lack of punctuation and obvious grammatical mistakes from someone who is clearly not a native English-speaking person. If you get this email, delete it immediately. Same with anything related to any of the other celebrities’ deaths.

They’re all from scammers (criminals) either trying to steal your money, your identity or both.

Swine Flu Breeds Spam

As usually happens with major disaster events—in this case the impending Swine Flu pandemic—email scammers are busy perpetrating pharmaceutical and other types of scams. In some cases, they’re using celebrity names to grab attention. Spam is hitting inboxes with various subjects. The following list, compiled by McAfee and posted on the McAfee Avert Labs Blog, shows some of the subject lines they’ve seen:

First US swine flu victims!
US swine flu statistics
Salma Hayek caught swine flu!
Swine flu worldwide!
Swine flu in Hollywood!
Swine flu in USA
Madonna caught swine flu!

They also report a 30x increase in the number of domain name registrations mentioning “swine.” It’s a good bet that many of those names will be used by scammers.

I’ve alerted my clients to this latest wave and sent reminders to everyone that should they receive any such emails, they should immediately delete them. That’s good advice to pass along.

Beware U.S. Tax Phishing Scams

It’s tax time in the U.S. and with that generally comes an increase in the number of phishing scams directed at taxpayers. The IRS, whether we like them or not, has an excellent anti-scam/anti-phishing web site. One key thing to remember is that the IRS does not initiate taxpayer communications through e-mail. Here’s an excerpt from their site:

The IRS does not initiate taxpayer communications through e-mail.

* The IRS does not request detailed personal information through e-mail.
* The IRS does not send e-mail requesting your PIN numbers, passwords or similar access information for credit cards, banks or other financial accounts.

If you receive an e-mail from someone claiming to be the IRS or directing you to an IRS site,

* Do not reply.
* Do not open any attachments. Attachments may contain malicious code that will infect your computer.
* Do not click on any links…

Additional information is provided by the IRS in a recent press release:

Beware of IRS’ 2009 “Dirty Dozen” Tax Scams

IR-2009-41, April 13, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today issued its 2009 “dirty dozen” list of tax scams, including schemes involving phishing, hiding income offshore and false claims for refunds….

The IRS urges taxpayers to avoid these common schemes:

Phishing

Phishing is a tactic used by Internet-based scam artists to trick unsuspecting victims into revealing personal or financial information. The criminals use the information to steal the victim’s identity, access bank accounts, run up credit card charges or apply for loans in the victim’s name.

Phishing scams often take the form of an e-mail that appears to come from a legitimate source, including the IRS. The IRS never initiates unsolicited e-mail contact with taxpayers about their tax issues. Taxpayers who receive unsolicited e-mails that claim to be from the IRS can forward the message to phishing@irs.gov. Further instructions are available at IRS.gov. To date, taxpayers have forwarded scam e-mails reflecting thousands of confirmed IRS phishing sites. If you believe you have been the target of an identity thief, information is available at IRS.gov.

I highly recommend you visit the IRS site and heed their excellent advice: How to Report and Identify Phishing, E-mail Scams and Bogus IRS Web Sites

Conficker’s raison d’etre? Profit, of Course

More than a week after Conficker’s much-hyped April 1st activation date, the botnet has come to life and is using a P2P communication system to update itself on what is believed to be millions of infected PCs. Along with the update, the worm is downloading scareware known as SpywareProtect2009, according to Alex Gostev of Kaspersky Lab:

One of the files is a rogue anti-virus app, which we detect as FraudTool.Win32.SpywareProtect2009.s. The first version of Kido (Conficker), detected back in November 2008, also downloaded fake antivirus to the infected machine. And once again, six months later, we’ve got unknown cybercriminals using the same trick.

As is typical with scareware, once SpywareProtect2009 is downloaded, the victim will start seeing the usual popup warning messages asking if they want to “clean and protect” their PC (see screen shot below). Of course, this will cost them $49.95. The criminals will no doubt make millions on these fees alone while amassing a huge database of valid credit card numbers that will likely be sold for additional profit.

Threatpost.com has posted an excellent FAQ and also provides a disinfection tool called KKiller for download.

Beware the Phone Phishing Scam

In my area, there has been a rash of phishing calls targeting bank customers. Coincidentally, today’s WXP News (Vol. 8, #59 - Feb 24, 2009 - Issue #367) addresses the same issue:

You might never click a link in an email purporting to be from your bank, but what if someone from the bank called you on the phone and informed you that your account may have been compromised, and asked for your credentials? The best of these scammers will express concern for “security” and insist that you call them back to “verify” that the call is legitimate. And of course, the number that they give you to call is answered with the bank’s name. Some even go so far as to spoof the caller ID information so your phone displays the name of the bank when they call.

The countermeasure to this is to hang up, dial the bank’s main, published phone number and ask to speak to someone in their security department (some banks call it their “Bank Protection” section). Tell them you believe you may be the target of fraudulent activity. Most banks adhere to some variation of this policy: [XYZ Bank] does not contact customers via email, phone or mail to request or verify security information about passwords, personal identification numbers (PINs), credit card numbers or Social Security numbers.

Check your bank’s website for more information and current security alerts. And don’t give out any information over the phone unless you are absolutely sure who is on the other end.