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While America sleeps, and the drive-by media obsesses over who will buy the U.S. presidency, billions of internet users' dollars are being put to work for online crime... and ICANN, the people who bring you the internet, are planning their escape from Washington, D.C. ... Not good news!
Internet-based schemes of tricking people into revealing confidential financial information, topped the Internal Revenue Service's annual list of scams that taxpayers should be aware of.
The IRS on Thursday also warned people not to fall for predators posing as IRS representatives who tell them they must reveal personal information to obtain the economic stimulus payment. That payment goes out automatically to anyone who files a tax return. By Jim Abrams, Associated Press
The Internal Revenue Service has issued its 2008 list of the 12 most egregious tax schemes and scams, highlighted by Internet phishing scams and several frivolous tax arguments. Topping this year's list of scams is phishing, which encompasses numerous Internet-based ploys to steal financial information from taxpayers. New this year is a scheme, which IRS auditors discovered, that relates to unreasonable and/or excessive fuel tax credit claims. Tammy Terry Anchor News 3
USA Today
7.3 million unique instances of bots carrying out nefarious activities were tracked on an average day in January. Two days after actor Heath Ledger died, e-mails began moving across the Internet purportedly carrying a link to a detailed police report divulging "the real reason" behind the actor's death. Ledger had been summarily drafted into the service of a botnet.
Bots are compromised computers controlled by profit-minded crooks. Those e-mails were spread by a network of thousands of bots, called a botnet. Anyone who clicked on the link got instantly absorbed into the fast-spreading Mega-D botnet, says security firm Marshal. Mega-D enriches its operators, mainly by distributing spam for male-enhancement pills. Read more
Botnets can be used to blackmail targeted sites : Cyberextortionists have perfected denial-of-service attacks, in which thousands of bots are directed to bombard a targeted website with nuisance requests, effectively preventing anyone else from connecting to the site. Read more
"With e-crime, there's no silver bullet," says Garreth Griffith, head of UK risk management at online payment processor PayPal. "A specific initiative can have a huge impact, but it also has to be married with other initiatives along a spectrum. You can't just focus on educating users or working with law enforcement - you've got to go for a multi-pronged approach as you're constantly fighting a war against the fraud guys." Read more
A total of 188 global banking brands were targeted by phishing attacks during February -- the highest figure for six months, reported by www.computing.co.uk
Eden accounts have come under attack in recent weeks, as phishers have attempted to obtain personal information from unsuspecting students. Although the spam software at the Rutgers University Office of Information Technology intercepted a majority of the e-mails, some of the e-mails were able to get through. From the thetriangle.org
More than 50,000 SF State students and faculty members have received fraudulent e-mails as part of a scam in which recipients are asked to respond with personal information to e-mails appearing to be from university administrators. Along with a message warning students of the threat posed by the scam, a cautionary e-mail has been sent to all students by the SF State division of information technology encouraging recipients to send questionable e-mails to abuse@sfsu.edu. This is from the xpress.sfsu.edu -- also covered by www.sfsu.edu campus news.
The increasing prevalence of scams designed to steal a person's information, and the increasing number of incidents of identity theft, prompted the Alaska House of Representatives recently to pass House Bill 65, legislation that offers "sweeping expansions and reforms of the state's consumer protection and identity theft laws." from Alaska Continues on the next page
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