Working at Home on the Internet » Spam

Spam, Virus, Phishing e-mail Alert

Joe Hauckes — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:05:24 +0000

Spam Alert, quite possibly a Virus Alert and/or a Take Over your Computer for Spam and/or Phishing Alert

There are currently two different Spam, Virus, Phishing e-mails that have been showing up in MY WAHI e-mail.

It is possible that they could be showing up in YOUR e-mail shortly too, hence this WARNING!

The first one is from Microsoft Team showing My e-mail address in the background. The Subject is Conflicker.B Infection Alert and the attachment leads to an Application exe file and should NOT Be Opened. It could cause problems that you don’t want nor need.

Here is a copy of the text:

Dear Microsoft Customer,

Starting 12/11/2009 the ‘Conficker’ worm began infecting Microsoft customers unusually rapidly. Microsoft has been advised by your Internet provider that your network is infected.

To counteract further spread we advise removing the infection using an antispyware program. We are supplying all effected Windows Users with a free system scan in order to clean any files infected by the virus.

Please install attached file to start the scan. The process takes under a minute and will prevent your files from being compromised. We appreciate your prompt cooperation.

Regards,
Microsoft Windows Agent #2 (Hollis)
Microsoft Windows Computer Safety Division

The second is probably even More devious because it is directed to My e-mail address from an even more Trusted Site. ME. The subject is A new settings file for the joe@workingathomeinternet.com has just been released. I think I would have known, but someone who was new to internet might not be as wary. The attachment opens an exe file that attaches to the Settings on your Computer. Don’t Open It!

Copy:

Dear use of the workingathomeinternet.com mailing service!

We are informing you that because of the security upgrade of the mailing service your mailbox joe@workingathomeinternet.com settings were changed. In order to apply the new set of settings open zip attached file.

Best regards, workingathomeinternet.com Technical Support.

I bring these to you in my never ending fight against Spam, Viruses and Phishers.

Please just be aware that even some of your Most Trusted Sites may have been compromised or used in a fashion to try to deceive you into opening a file that will harm your computer, maybe your Business and invade your privacy or steal your identity.

Just a Friendly Warning from me to you

An Example of a Scam Disguised as a Comment

Joe Hauckes — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:47:11 +0000

I got THIS as a comment the other day. Do you think it is some kind of Phishing Scheme, Scam, Spam or just an idiot trying to get some type of Jollies?

I will pay you $50 to your PayPal within 24 hours if you sign-up with a web-hosting website for just $0.01 with your own PayPal.
You just have to spend $0.01 from your PayPal to earn the $50 from me by PayPal.

Are you interested ?
If yes …..

1. Then plz go to: http:// XXXX.cc/ZZZCA and on that page on the left-below, you’ll see a plan called “Personal” and a little below it, there is an
“Order Now” button. Click on it.
2. Now click on the “I will update my nameservers on an existing domain Or I will register a new domain.” radio-button. After that remember one of the domain
name you own and enter it in the blank field saying “www”. Then click on “Click to Continue”.
3. On the next page, click on “Add to Cart”.
4. On the next page, enter the coupon “1CentPersonal” (without the double quote) in the “Promotional Code” field. And then click on “Validate Code”.
5. Then you will see that the Total price has come down to just $0.01. (The $6.99 fee is to be deducted from next month and you will cancel this subscription later on)
Now click on the “Checkout” button.
6. On the next page, fill up your details. Then click on “Complete Order” button.
7. On the next page, on the top-right you will see a yellow-coloured PayPal subscribe logo – click on it.
8. On the next page, log on to the PayPal.
9. Here you will see that the website is charging you only $0.01 and a small monthly fee of $6.99 payable after 30 days. This is a subscription. That website
will automatically deduct a monthly fee of $6.99 from the next month.

IMPORTANT NOTE : You will accept this $0.01 payment and the $6.99 subscription (payable after 30 days) for the time being only but after 7 days, you will
have to cancel the $6.99 monthly subscription, so that I can recover my affiliate fee from that website.

10. After you have paid, plz go to the website and browse the website for 5 minutes and then log out.

After this, send me an invoice of $50 by PayPal to me to XXX.norris @XXXXXXXXXX .com and write your email adress with which you have signed-up with that
website in the “Message” field (so that I can verify whether you have indeed signed-up or not) and within 24 hours, I will pay you $50 to your PayPal.

Thanx and have some action ! Happy earning !

I can’t believe that some people actually fall for this kind of thing, it’s almost as bad as the Nigerian thing you get in e-mail.

I did take out the links and sent this to the Spam Folder. Do you run into this type of junk getting through your Spam Filter? How do you respond?

Update: I just got the EXACT same comment on a different post using a different e-mail address that WAS CAUGHT by Akismet.

If it Sounds Too Good to be True, IT IS

Joe Hauckes — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:03:26 +0000

No Probably About it!

I have been getting quite a few hits for the search term “… Scam or Legit” recently. I also been getting quite a bit more Spam, Scam and Phishing e-mails personally, so I thought it might be time for a post about how to avoid getting caught in the nest of nefarious nare-do-wells navigating the net.

Never, ever click on a link if you don’t know who sent the e-mail.
Never, ever click on a link if you didn’t ask for it, and make sure they used your correct address.
Double, triple check the link by hovering over it to see where it actually goes.
Set up different e-mail accounts for various purposes ie. personal, online purchases, business accounts.
Use a contact form with a specific e-mail address for blog/website communications.
If you are so inclined, read the text of the e-mail. If it is written badly using improper grammer, chances are it’s not really something to get involved with, it is likely Spam.
As I mentioned earlier and bears repeating, if you don’t know the sender, don’t click on the link.

Your thoughts? Ideas? Do you know anyone who got scammed like this?

Are Comment Spammers Slacking Off?

Joe Hauckes — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:47:55 +0000

Probably Not…

Last February, on Super Bowl Sunday we had a Milestone around here. We hit and soon passed 100,000 Spam Comments blocked by Akismet.

In the short post marking the occasion, I mentioned a fellow blogger who had lamented about NOT getting any spam. I assured her that it was nothing to worry about, they would soon start their attack.

In the last 8 months, Spammers had been consistent enough and as of today we are at 120,223 spam comments blocked.

BUT…

For the past week, I have only been averaging 4-5 spam comments per day. What’s up with that? It WAS 40-50 minimum daily, and often times there were multiple pages of spam a day. Not that I’m complaining, but what is going on? Did I do something to offend them (I hope) or did they lose my URL (I wish). Maybe it was something else that I’m not aware of.

Some thoughts and possibilities:

I haven’t been posting as regularly as I’d like, there are days that I miss posting for various reasons (read excuses) and they lost interest.
I activated the No Index feature to stop Google indexing my feeds on FeedBurner to stop Scrapers (I have since deactivated it because I lost over 100 Subscribers and they are more important than the bad guys). Could the spammers be using the same back door?
Maybe the comment spammers run in cycles. It seems that even though they have slowed their efforts here, they have Picked Up on the MCBS Blog. I’m getting at least a page (50) spammers over there every day.
Has Akismet finally found a way to actually block comment spam so we can’t even see it? I am not sure if I’d like that, too many Real comments get caught as spam. I want to have the option of make a determination myself.

As I said, I’m not complaining! I’m just curious as to the reason for the sudden drop off of comment spam. Have you ever noticed such a phenomenon? Any other ideas? Maybe we can find a way to beat them once and for all (yeah, right)!

The End of the Did You Rob Bill Gates Scraping Saga?

Joe Hauckes — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:04:59 +0000

Hopefully.

Yesterday’s post was not scraped. When I checked the Technorati Links in the WordPress Dashboard, all the posts that were linked came up with a Great Big 404 error (page not found). Hurray!!!

Understand, Did You Rob Bill Gates is still stealing other peoples content, just not mine (fingers crossed). So, I wanted to share my thoughts on what may have worked, at least in this one instance.

As mentioned in the earlier FeedBurner post, I commented on their blog asking & then telling them to stop stealing my content. I also blocked their IP address so as not to allow access to the blog itself. Of course, nothing happened with these steps, but I felt it was the right progression to cover any further steps I would take.

What Might have worked.

On each of the linked posts, I clicked through to DYRBG as each of my new posts were linked. Of course, AdSense is right at the top, so I clicked the small Ads by Google link in the Ad Box. Within the popup screen there is a way to send Google your thoughts on the site you are reading.

Clicking that brings you to another page where you can tell how relevant the ads are to that post. Below that is a link to report a violation of AdSenses TOS. Clicking that gives you a choice of Website or Ad Violations.

Click Website, and you get a list of violations, including but not limited to, distributing your copyrighted material. Once you click that it will ask for examples of the infringement (you must type something in there, eg Your Link) & e-mail address (optional).

It’s doubtful that this worked, because the site is still there and scraping.

What I think may have worked.

Since they were scraping my RSS Feed every time I posted something new, that was the place to start.

I have been using the RSS Feed Signature Plugin by Smackfoo to put the copyright for WAHI in the footer of the feeds. The plugin works great, but some people have no respect for other peoples work even if it is protected. You can actually put anything you like in the footer, links back to the blog, advertisements, whatever. So, I put “IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON “DID YOU ROB BILL GATES”, IT IS STOLEN CONTENT! PLEASE DO NOT CLICK ON ANY ADS, IT WILL ONLY ENCOURAGE THIS THIEF!”

This showed up on EVERY post of mine they scraped so that if someone read their posting of my article, they would see it and possibly take heed and Not Click an Ad.

I don’t think they felt any guilt, but maybe it affected their pocketbook a bit. Maybe even enough to take down they posts they stole from me.

Actually, I don’t know if it was any one or combination of the above that worked, but something did. At least for the time being.

So, if your material is being scraped by such a Splog, maybe some or all of these steps will help stop the problem in it’s tracks.