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I read an interesting post on Graham Cluley’s blog over at Sophos this morning. Cluley is a professional security expert. Today, he wrote about a security flaw on the Twitter Web site that could cause big problems. The flaw allows users to post messages using onMouseOver JavaScript code. The code prompts a pop-up window to appear if you scroll your mouse over the tweet. It’ll also automatically direct you to a Web page if there’s a link included in the message. Can you see where this could be a huge problem?
Are you evil or willing to learn? Do you wish to profit off of the suffering of others? Do you have no scruples, morals, ethical boundaries or decency? Then come on down to CyberCrime Incorporated!
I’m guessing that the actual ads targeting potential cyber criminals aren’t quite that transparent. But according to this report in Reuters, at least two companies that promote criminal activities are placing ads for work-at-home jobs. Employees must take company-provided code and link it to something — anything — on the Web that will guarantee lots of clicks. The employee receives a payment for every 1,000 downloads generated by the link.
Come join us at 1:00 p.m. Eastern today to see if Chris and I have recovered from the psychological damage we endured while covering the Apple iPad announcement last week. Today we’ll be talking about some mysterious botnet activity, rumored products from Microsoft and an obligatory segment on the aforementioned iPad. Plus you don’t want to miss our special effects extravaganza known as the Tweet of the Week!
You can watch us right here or grab our handy-dandy Facebook application.
Yep. You read that right. This morning I found an article from Murad Ahmed in The Times that said that British police — specifically the Central Police e-Crime Unit — have arrested a man for phishing for login and password information for the online role-playing game RuneScape. If the charges are proven true, this crime would be identity theft in its purest form — stealing actual game characters and their goods.
RuneScape is an online game with more than 10 million members, Ahmed said. He didn’t report on how many of those members might be affected.
So why would someone be interested in stealing virtual goods, anyhow? Simply put, there’s a market for it. People want powerful items and characters, but they don’t want to spend the time it takes to go through the game and level their characters up and find rare weapons, so they buy them from others.
Keylogging Attack May be to Blame for Compromised E-mail Accounts
by Chris Pollette | October 8, 2009
In Tuesday’s episode of TechStuff Live, Jonathan and I discussed the discovery that user names and passwords from Google, Yahoo and Hotmail accounts had been posted online where anyone could see them. At the time, only people with user names in the As and Bs had been posted, and we conjectured that there would be more. Not only have more been posted, but it appears that the scam is spreading.
The reaction many people have when something like this happens is that someone has hacked into the providers. But it appears that that’s not what happened here. Instead, it’s a phishing scheme — a scam where people trick users into revealing important personal information, including names, credit card numbers, Social Security numbers and more.
According to an article I read last night at the BBC, this phishing scam is spreading. People are using the compromised accounts to send e-mail to address-book contacts.
It’s certainly not vhat vampires do on a star. Sadly, it’s yet another scam. If you’ve received a call that says the warranty might be up on your car, you’re the recipient of a vishing attempt. Vishing is short for “voice phishing,” and it works just like the online version. It’s a social engineering technique designed to get you to fork over money for a supposed benefit of some sort. According to an article by Marguerite Reardon in CNET today, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has filed lawsuits against two telemarketing firms and another company offering car warranties. Reardon said the organizations collected more than $10 billion after making 1 billion calls since 2007.
Reardon’s article said that these vishers use caller ID spoofing to hide their identities. That means that if you looked at your caller ID, you’d see what appears to be a legitimate number.
Brad Stone, blogger for the New York Times reported yesterday that a list of 8,000 Comcast customer user names and passwords was on the Web site Scribd. Scribd is a site that allows users to share documents with others. More than 300 people had viewed the list before it was removed. A representative from Comcast responded to the story and explained that the list contained several duplicate entries, cutting the number of affected customers in half. According to the representative, the list did not originate from within Comcast and was likely the result of a phishing scam.
It’s very important to be aware of phishing tactics. The New York Times story mentions that Kevin Andreyo, the man who discovered the list and reported it to journalists and the authorities, admits to using the same password for multiple accounts. I’m sure many of us are guilty of the same thing…
Phishers send emails to strangers, hoping to swindle them out of thousands of dollars. From the notorious Nigerian email scams to fake hard-luck stories, phishing scams depend on the greed of online victims. Learn more in this HowStuffWorks podcast.
Join Marshall Brain as he takes a look at the dangers of identity theft and what you can do to reduce those dangers. Learn more in this HowStuffWorks podcast.
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