So here is another phishing email supposedly from Wachovia bank.

If you look closely at the message it just doesn't read right. In the first sentence, there should not be a comma after the word Banking. In the second sentence there are missing words that, if present, would make the sentence read properly.

If you actually mouse over the link in the message, the real addresses shows at the bottom of the email. The site appears to be hosted at the Beijing Pharmaceutical College web site.

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So this email is telling me that there was an issue updating my account during a process to provide me secure online access to my account. Ok, if they know where to send an email to contact me about my account, why don't they have access to the rest of my information?

Even if you miss the poor grammar and the big "Update Now" link that actually points to the Beijing Pharmaceutical College web site, this one should stand out as not being quite right.

On a side note, no bank that I would use will send you to an external site to enter your account information, secured or not.

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Here is an example of a phishing email that is targeting citibank account holders. This email is written better than most of phishing attempts I have seen, but there are still some tell tale signs that this message just isn't right.

• The first sentence in the second paragraph doesn't make sense, the wording isn't correct.
• Then when you mouse over the link the address, in the bottom part of the email doesn't match the text in the message.

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Here is an example of an attempt to mislead Branch Banking and Trust customers. Even though the message looks ok, there are a couple of tip offs.

• The grammar through out the message isn't right
• When you mouse over the link, the target address shown at the bottom of the message does not match the link text in the message.

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I received a suspicious email last night from a "Mrs Rose Wealth" about an opportunity with the "Stat-Oil Group". The first thing that tipped me off was the formatting of the email, there were no line breaks, the email appeared as one long paragraph. As I read the email, it sounded very much like a version of the foreign payment receiving officer scam.

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Over the last couple of days, I have received an email from "Bank of America" and "Wachovia". These messages were addressed to one of the accounts that I use for this site. This email address gets a lot of spam and I would never associate it with a bank account, so right away I knew something was "phishy". Now you might not be so lucky and actually recieve a message like this addressed to an account you actually would use for this purpose.

There are couple basic precautions you can take when looking at email messages and any websites the messages use.

First: If you are using Outlook Express, from the view menu item, make sure that status bar is checked. The status bar is the solid bar at the bottom of the email that will show you where a link is actually taking you.

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Today I received an email from Wachovia asking me to update my Halifax information. Strange that Wachovia would send me an email to update information for another institution. It struck me that this was most likely a phishing scam. It is, if you see a message like this DELETE IT.

Here is a picture of that email:

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Last night I received the following email, supposedly from Bank of America.

It is NOT from Bank of America, it is a phishing email. If you get an email like this DELETE IT

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I received two identical emails the other day. Neither message was addressed to me, so I had to be on the BCC, blind carbon copy, list. After a quick review, I determined that these emails were nothing more than a variant message on the standard next of kin scam.

If you receive a message like this Delete It do not reply to it and do not forward it to any one.

Here is a picture of the message I received.

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People buying computers need to be aware of the security and system software that is installed on new computers. Not only the software installed at the factory, but also by the techs at the elctronics stores.

Case in point:

Last week a friend of mine purchased a new computer at a local Electronics superstore. As part of the purchase the store's techs would remove all garbage software that is installed by the manufacturer, make a restore cd, and install a full fledged virus scanner ( not a trial version ). The virus scanner that was being touted by the sales guys as the one to choose was Microsoft's OneCare.

When they finally got to the check out and were able to talk to the techs, my friend asked if there were any other options. The tech person said that a Symantec was also available. My friend chose the Symantec product, mostly because of name recognition and he had used the product before with no real issues.

A good location to learn about AV product testing and results is Virus Bulletin.

If consumers are internet savy, a search for "independent virus testing" will yield some nice results.

Consumers must stay informed, they have to do the same type of research on security products as they do when purchasing bigger ticket items. You absolutely do not want a "lemon" when it comes to securing your computer in this day and age.

Here is a link that provides the results of the testing that was performed.
http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/ergebnisse_2007_02.php

The ISSA-NWA March 2007 meeting will be held at 11:00 am at the Whole Hog Café in Bentonville. Google map to the Cafe.

The meeting should last about two hours. You may purchase your lunch and eat it during the meeting.

Our agenda will be chapter business (about 45 minutes), followed by a technical and strategic discussion on Windows Vista BitLocker (about 1 hour).

BitLocker Drive Encryption is a data protection feature available in Windows Vista Enterprise and Ultimate for client computers and in Windows Server “Longhorn”. BitLocker is Microsoft’s response to one of our top customer requests: address the very real threats of data theft or exposure from lost, stolen or inappropriately decommissioned PC hardware with a tightly integrated solution in the Windows Operating System. The BitLocker Drive Encryption feature of Windows Vista poses an interesting set of security and performance requirements on the encryption algorithm used for the disk data, much of which we will examine.

This discussion will be facilitated by Christopher Beasley, Enterprise Strategy Consultant for Microsoft.

ISSA "1+1" Membership Drive

Please bring a colleague to the meeting. If that new member joins ISSA and:

You're an ISSA General or CISO Member.
You recruit a new ISSA General Member.
Your name is in the section: "referred by a member."

You and the new member each get an opportunity for:

Round trip airfare
Hotel accommodations
Information Security Conference Fees
300 US Dollars for expenses
Dinner with the ISSA Board of Directors (if attending a CISO Executive Forum)
Picture and interview for the ISSA Journal

Article Review:

Information Week published an intriguing article on the cyber-criminal economy.

On the cyber-criminal black market:
Credit cards with their pin numbers sell for nearly $500
Credit card numbers with security code and expiration date are worth $6-$24
Billing data, including account number, address, Social Security number, home address, and birth date, fetches $78-$294
Trojan programs to steal online account information will set a hacker back $980-$4,900. A computer program to exploit a flaw in Windows new Vista operating system was being sold for $50,000.

I received an email with the subject of ZUMA AND MOTHER from someone I did not know, zuma bullians, and the email was addressed to no one. Which means I was on the blind carbon copy list. All of this struck me as a spam message, until I actually read the content of the email and realized this was a part of a scam.

This scam mail has been around for a while. If you see a message like this, don't respond to it, just DELETE IT.

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Here is another version of the "Next of Kin" scam email. This one is for an english lawyer.

If you receive an email like this just Delete It.

Here are the contents of the email I received.

ATTORNEY MARK ANTHONY
Plot 12 Mary Land,Lagos-Nigeria

Dear Moats,

I am Barrister Mark Anthony (Esq) , I am the Personal Attorney to Mr. Henry
Moats,a foreigner, who use to work with Jangle Cement Company here in
Nigeria, on the 2nd of Dec. 2002, my client and his wife ,got involved in a
car accident, all occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost there lives.
Since then I have made several enquiries to locate any of my clients
extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful. After these several
unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his relatives over the Internet,
to locate any member of his family but of no avail, hence I contacted you. I
have contacted you to assist in repatriating the fund left behind by my late
client because the bank have asked me as his lawyer to produce his next of
kin.

Particularly, Bank have given me a notice to provide the next of kin to
claim the contract valued at about US$11 Million Dollars or have the amount
confiscates, since I have been unsuccessfully in locating the relatives for
over years, now I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the
deceased since your a foreigner and have the same surname so that the
proceeds of this account valued at US$11 Million can be paid to you.

All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this dealt through
.I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that
will protect you from any breach of the law of your country and my country
too as a professional legal attorney in
the field.

Finally, kindly maintain confidentiality between me and you on this
transaction.

Note: Some of the lawyers in my office have been planning to divert this
particular amount of money US$11M but they failed because I never authorized
anybody to do that, as the principal attorney of this estate I hereby urge
your assistance to get this fund transfer into your account legitimately
which I am assuring you. Some lawyers may contact you in different ways
concerning this claim, don't respond to them, forwarding me the message they
send to you so that I can get them sacked and arrested.

Upon your consideration of this transaction, you are hereby asked to send
the following information that I will use to prepare and application on your
behalf as you Legal Counsel representing this claim legally:

1. Your Full names
2. Your complete Postal Address.
3. Your Telephone number
4. Your fax number
5. Your Occupation.
6. Sex.
7. Marital Status.
8. Ages

I await your urgent response.

ALL RESPONSE SHALL BE SEND TO THIS EMAIL ADDRESS AS IN
BRACKET (markclaim10@uku.co.uk)
Best regards,
ATTORNEY MARK ANTHONY

_________________________________________________________________
Turn searches into helpful donations. Make your search count.
http://click4thecause.live.com/search/charity/default.aspx?source=hmemtagline_donation&FORM=WLMTAG

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I was looking through some suspicious files last night, I am way behind on this so this information, while interesting, may be a little dated.

Through my travels I had discovered a web site that was using the RDS DataSpace object to download and execute virus code on unsuspecting visitors. I was curious about the downloaded executable so I grabbed it and the web page for further review. The downloaded file was named vnn.exe on the server, which was identified as W32.Imaut.S worm by Symantec.

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Here we are at the start of a new year and wouldn't it be great if eveyone's home computer was running updated Anti-Virus software. I know that some folks don't purchase AV software because of the expense and the mindset of, "I don't do anything to get a virus so I don't really need that".Well, you really do need AV software and ...... I won't get into "you really need to patch any windows machine you have" and have a firewall and antispyware, and practice safe Internet / Email habits.

Any way back to AV software, there are a few Anti-Virus companies out there that recognize the need for inexpensive, aka Free, Home PC Anti-Virus protection. Most of the big Anti-Virus companies provide free online products, but there are a few companies that provide actual Free PC software based Anti-Virus for your Personal / Home machine. I thought I would list the few that I know about.

Free Virus Scanners
AVG Free Virus Scanner
avast Free Virus Scanner
Avira Free Virus Scanner

Free Online Virus Scanners
VirusTotal free online scanner
Trend Micro free online scanner
McAfee free online scanner
Kaspersky free online scanner
F-Secure free online scanner

If you know of any others please post here so we can share with everyone.