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Hotmail phishing: Don't send us the wrong password or we'll suspend your account!

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: January 14, 2012
  • Reading Time: 2 min
  • Word Count: 297 words

SophosLabs: Have you been told to verify your Hotmail account? Did you receive a message saying that Hotmail’s email servers were congested, and so they were removing all unused accounts? If so, I hope you responded to the email with a roll of the eyes and a quick stab of the delete button. Because if you didn’t, you might have been at risk of having your login credentials stolen. ...

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Facebook Scam: In memory of Steve, a company is giving out 50 ipads tonight

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: October 6, 2011
  • Reading Time: 1 min
  • Word Count: 89 words

“In memory of Steve, a company is giving out 50 ipads tonight
” is another Facebook scam you want to avoid. More similar scam links is expected, so take care what you click on, These kind of free offers will end up in phishing or malware attacks. Don’t forget you should join the Omid’s Blog Facebook page, where I not only debunk hoaxes and chain letters or scams, but I also keep you up-to-date on the latest rogue applications, scams and malware attacks threatening Facebook users. Credit to Norman Security. ...

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iPhone 5 giveaways on Facebook – a scam or what?

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: September 1, 2011
  • Reading Time: 2 min
  • Word Count: 274 words

SophosLabs: Even if it hasn’t been officially announced yet, and certainly isn’t available to the general public (unless an Apple employee loses a test model in a bar), there are plenty of scammers out there trying to trick you into believing you can get a free iPhone 5. Here’s just a sample of the pages on Facebook claiming to be an iPhone 5 giveaway. Typically they are trying to trick you into clicking on links, driving traffic to online surveys which earns them revenue. ...

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German Federal Office for Information Security warns of hacked online shops

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: August 16, 2011
  • Reading Time: 2 min
  • Word Count: 214 words

H-Online: The German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) is warning of online shops which infect users with malicious software by exploiting security vulnerabilities in the user’s browser, operating system or applications. The affected shops have themselves been hacked by attackers exploiting security vulnerabilities in outdated versions of open source online shop software osCommerce. As reported by The H two weeks ago, osCommerce shops are currently being hacked en masse. The vulnerabilities used for the hack were fixed in November last year with the release of osCommerce 2.3, but many companies running online shops have yet to update to a secure version. ...

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Twitter finally released a "Stalkers" app? No, it's a phishing scam

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: August 14, 2011
  • Reading Time: 2 min
  • Word Count: 391 words

Sophos Labs: Twitter users are being hit today by messages claiming to link to a new app from Twitter which will track your stalkers. However, the messages are really designed to steal your Twitter usernames and passwords. Here’s a typical message that users are seeing: Twitter finally released an app that tracks your “Stalkers” get it here [LINK] If you click on the link you are taken to what appears to be a legitimate Twitter page, asking you to confirm your username and password before the “Stalkers” app can access your account. ...

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Firefox Extension Used in Facebook Scam

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: March 23, 2011
  • Reading Time: 3 min
  • Word Count: 433 words

Symantec Connect: Not only Facebook is adding new and interesting features to its toolbox; spammers and scammers in Facebook are, too. Currently there is a scam making rounds using a classic “who is viewing your profile” themed bait. So far – nothing new. After the user grants the application the requested privileges, which of course will send out the above mentioned spam posts to all his or her friends, the user gets redirected to a download instruction site. There he or she is asked to download the Firefox browser and then install a popular Firefox extension which allegedly gets downloaded over 27,000 times per week. This simple tweak should generate a new menu entry in Facebook which would then show user statistics. ...

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Don’t Lie to Me, Angelina!

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: December 15, 2010
  • Reading Time: 2 min
  • Word Count: 376 words

Earlier this year I received a Facebook invite in my Yahoo! Mail account from none other than Angelina Jolie herself. I kid you not. While it’s true that we live in the Digital Age where communicating with anyone is a mere tap of a finger away—whether it’s via email, IM, Facebook, Twitter, etc.—the chances that Ms. Jolie would randomly reach out to a regular Joe, such as myself, is still pretty darn improbable. So, the following questions raced through my mind: ...

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Taking a look at fake Amazon receipt generators

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: December 7, 2010
  • Reading Time: 3 min
  • Word Count: 552 words

Sunbelt Blog: Above, you can see a vaguely optimistic VirusTotal user summary in relation to a file that’s been doing the rounds for about a month or two. Here is the file in question: A “receipt generator”, I hear you ask – what do people want with one of those? The answer, of course, is rather straightforward: This is a particularly interesting scam, as it doesn’t target regular PC users – it targets the people who sell you things, such as the merchants on the Amazon marketplace. This is what the would-be social engineer sees when they fire up the program: ...

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Adobe update spam scam

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: December 6, 2010
  • Reading Time: 2 min
  • Word Count: 304 words

Here’s the latest twist in the “membership” site scam: spam emails that tell potential victims to update their Adobe Reader include links to a web site intended to look like something related to Adobe products, but is selling “memberships.” The REAL way to update your Adobe software is on the help menu: help | check for updates (see the end of this blog piece for details). The spam email: ...

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Proxy services take novel approach to privacy

  • Post author: Omid Farhang
  • Post published: December 6, 2010
  • Reading Time: 1 min
  • Word Count: 144 words

You’ve locked down your computer. Nothing is going to bypass your privacy shielding programs. AdBlock is fully loaded, NoScript is ready to roll and RefControl is sending “Party on, Wayne” as your custom referrer to all and sundry. However, you really want to hide your IP address too and decide to load up one of the many web-based proxy services available. Something humorous I’ve noticed across many web-based proxies recently is that they’re jumping on a marketing strategy that might be slightly at odds with their attempts at privacy for the end-user. In order to keep your private details private, you have to _fill in a survey and hand over a bunch of information to third party marketers. _ Type in a URL, hit the “Go” button on the proxy and you’ll see one of these: ...

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