Email Fraud
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
Here we go again. The vultures are circling, ready to take advantage of people affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill; just like they do after every disaster.
We just blocked a stack of emails purporting to offer help collecting money from the 20 billion dollar compensation fund BP is so graciously providing. In reality though, these emails are an advance-fee fraud attempt.
Advance-fee fraud is a con game in which the perpetrator promises to help the victim receive a large payment (such as an inheritance) but requires “up-front” money to complete the transaction. If the victim is gullible enough they may request several advance payments but in all cases the final payout is never delivered.
The examples we’re focusing on today are pretty slimy overall and not difficult to detect as fraud but they do provide some insights into how these advance-fee scams work.
(more…)
Tags: fraud, scam
Posted in Email Fraud, The Lighter Side | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
This weeks most popular virus email variant attempts to use vague to it’s advantage.
Rather than trying to convince you that the emails is an official message from Ebay, Visa, Paypal, Chase or some other well known business, these messages are intentionally non-specific.
Subject lines refer only to some sort of “statement” like:
Subject: Statement of Fees
Subject: Statement of fees 2010
(more…)
Tags: botnet, spoofing, virus
Posted in Email Fraud, Spam Tactics | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
At least one of the larger spam botnets is hard at work these last few days spreading itself via spoofed Amazon.com emails.
For the most part, these frauds do an excellent job of mimicking legitimate Amazon emails.
The arrive with a Subject line of:
From: ”Amazon.com E-mail Subscriptions” <delivers@amazon.com>
Subject: Amazon.com: Please verify your new e-mail address
And the design, layout and attention to detail within the email is quite good:
Click for Larger Image
(more…)
Tags: botnet, fraud, spoofing, virus, zombie
Posted in Email Fraud, Spam Tactics | No Comments »
Friday, July 16th, 2010
Every so often we get the privilege of reading a laugh out loud funny fraud attempt.
Submitted for your enjoyment:
Subject: We are Not of Such Dirty and Illegal Characters
From: Western Union <westenunion11@live.com>
The subject alone is pretty funny but wait until you ready the message body.
Warning: You’ll probably have to read it several times because it’s fairly mind boggling.
(more…)
Tags: 419 scams, fraud, funny, humor, phishing
Posted in Email Fraud, The Lighter Side | No Comments »
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
Customers of Amarillo National Bank beware. There’s a new phishing campaign targeted at you. So far all of the examples we’ve seen have the same subject:
Subject: notification
And one of two slightly different from addresses:
From: “Amarillo National bank.”<anb@anb.com>
From: “Amarillo National .Bank.”<file3881001@anb.com>
Neither of which look very much like something a real bank would send.
(more…)
Tags: fraud, phishing
Posted in Email Fraud, Phishing Lessons | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
In a campaign that’s closely related to the [WordPress.com] Activate – Phishing Fraud we’re now also seeing a large volume of emails claiming to be Wikipedia e-mail address confirmations.
Messages arrive spoofing wikimedia.org senders, such as:
Subject: Wikipedia e-mail address confirmation
From: wiki@wikimedia.org
A screen shot of the fraudulent emails:
Click for Larger Image
(more…)
Tags: fraud, phishing, spoofing
Posted in Email Fraud, Spam Tactics | No Comments »
Friday, July 2nd, 2010
A new spam campaign is circulating that is spoofing “WordPress” blog subscriptions.
Emails most commonly arrive as:
Subject: [WordPress.com] Activate http://stephen.wordpress.com/
From: WordPress.com <donotreply@wordpress.com>
Below is a screen shot of an example email:
WordPress Phishing Fraud
(more…)
Tags: botnet, fraud, malware, scam, spoofing
Posted in Email Fraud, Spam Tactics | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
We don’t even know where to begin with this one:
Subject: Central Intelligence Agency
From: Central Inteligency Agency
To: undisclosed recipients: ;
The Central Inteligency Agency. Really?
(more…)
Tags: 419 scams, fraud, funny, scam
Posted in Email Fraud, The Lighter Side | No Comments »
Monday, June 28th, 2010
Let’s get this straight right off the bat: There’s no such thing as a free . . . credit score.
You can get a free credit report once a year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies (Equifax, TransUnion and Experian) by visiting www.annualcreditreport.com. The annualcreditreport.com site allows the credit bureaus to meet their government mandated obligation to disclose credit records to debtors and provides the most information you are going to get for free. Even annualcreditreport.com links to sites managed by the credit bureaus and they each try to trick you into buying credit “management” services while you are getting your annual free report.
Again, this is a free credit report. They are under no obligation to disclose your credit scores. Scores are only provided by the credit bureaus and only for a fee so for someone to give you a free credit score they would have to pay the fee for you.
Not likely.
In spite of this, the email message we’re focusing on today says “Get Your Free Credit Scores From All 3 Bureaus Now!”. So we have to wonder how they afford to give away free credit scores?
(more…)
Tags: bait and switch, fraud, scam
Posted in Email Fraud | No Comments »
Monday, June 14th, 2010
A newer Phishing Fraud campaign is out targeting Bank of America customers.
The email arrives:
Subject: Bank Of America Alert : Your Account Has Been Locked
From: Bank Of America Alert <e-banking@bofa.com>
Naturally the sending address is spoofed, as these emails arrive from hijacked mail servers in Europe and Asia.
What’s notable is the general quality of the Phishing email:
Click for Larger Image
(more…)
Tags: fraud, phishing, spoofing
Posted in Email Fraud, Phishing Lessons | No Comments »
Here we go again. The vultures are circling, ready to take advantage of people affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill; just like they do after every disaster.
