Monday, May 25, 2009

Are you a victim of another Facebook spam?

Have you opened files ending with ".at" or ".be"? If yes, welcome to the 'phishing' victims club. A million Facebook users have been hit by a new phishing scam that can result in crashing your computers or mobile phones and steal your passwords?

The phishing scam is being run through the spam messages which steal sensitive information of the Facebook users. In the attack, the messages are circulated with a subject line of "Hello" and a prompt to check out "areps.at" or other URLs ending in ".at".It is highly recommended not to click on these links for your computer security.

The mails with the subject line "Look at This" and links like -- goldbase.be, greenbuddy.be, silvertag.be, picoband.be -- leads to some malicious Web sites, which if visited, could secretly download malware onto computers through a "drive-by download" application.

The URL connectivity, before being blocked directs the visitor to a fake Facebook page and the mail ID and password are stolen as soon as it is logged-in again.

According to the All Facebook blog.Facebook, the password in such cases should be changed immediately and the same message should be sent across to one's Facebook acquaintance.

"Whoever is behind the scam has been steadily amassing a large number of e-mail addresses and passwords over the past few weeks," the blog says.

Though, Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said: "The impact of this attack or the previous ones are not widespread and only impacted a tiny fraction of a per cent of users.

"We've been updating our monitoring systems with information gleaned from the previous attacks so that each new attack is detected more quickly," he added.

The site has blocked links to the new phishing sites from being shared on Facebook and has added them to the block lists of the major internet browsers.

The social networking site is working with partners to have the sites taken down completely, he said adding Facebook is also cleaning up phony messages and wall posts and resetting the passwords of affected users.

"We believe the bad guys here are phishing an account and then trying those credentials on webmail providers," Schnitt said.

So, for example, if a user is compromised on Facebook and has the same login and ID password for their Gmail, the attacker may be able to intercept the Facebook password reset and compromise the account again in the future, he added. Password must be changed often to maintain your account security and password security.

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Thursday, May 14, 2009

Free computer security software

Within the past two years Consumer Reports National Research Center says one in five people were victimized by cybercrimes. Their computers were infected by spyware or viruses, they were caught by phishing scams, or they had their identity stolen.

Like more than a million others in the last year, he had his identity stolen while shopping on line. 
“They started out small in 15, 25 dollar increments, and they slowly increased. I tallied it up to somewhere close to $25,000.”
Consumer Reports’ Dean Gallea cautions only shop at sites you trust. And it’s essential to protect your computer from spyware, viruses, and spam by installing security software.
Consumer Reports tested security suites costing between 50 and 90 dollars. But Dean found free security software that’s on par with the best. To fight viruses: AntiVir from Free-dash-A-V-dot-com. To prevent spyware: Windows Defender from Microsoft.com. And to stop spam: Spamfighter Standard from Spamfighter.com.
You also want to protect against phishing. These emails look like they come from banks and other companies, but are actually lures to gain access to your accounts.
Dean Gallea, of Consumer Reports, says “Never click on links in e-mails that go to banks or other sites that have your personal information.”
Instead, type the company’s Web address into your browser.  For more your computer security, download free anti-phishing software, such as the McAfee Site Advisor, this warns when you go to a dangerous site.

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