A quick link and some blog love for a brilliant infographic showing some of the threats that are out there on Facebook…. The Geography of Social Media Threats.
There are a large number of scam emails circulating at the moment claiming to be from PayPal and that a new email has been added to your account and inviting you to click on a link to restore the original account email. This is a live and active threat currently running (as of 16:24 BST, 26th July 2011).
The domain names used by the scammers so far have included paypalinfo.com (an example including this email is shown below) and paypalf.com
Hovering the mouse over the link reveals it’s destination…. which far from being a server at PayPal is in reality part of some low life scammers network in China trying to con people into entering their PayPal details so the scammers can rip them off.
http://219.138.170.167/setting.files/www/index.html
The part of the URL in red is direct to the scammers computer and the part in blue, what the scammers want you to run, not only could this be a phishing attempt, it could create all sorts of other chaos on your computer.
Please share this alert with friends and family
Another scam alert, this time in Chiltern District Council’s area.
Over the last few days Chiltern District Council has been contacted by residents who have received telephone calls informing them that the Government has arranged refunds of council tax of £7,000 for a limited number of people. The caller reads out their name, bank account number, and address. They then ask for the person’s debit card details so they can arrange payment.
There is no such Government scheme, this is a scam.
If you are contacted about a council tax refund please be careful about what information you give over the telephone. If you are unsure, hang up and call our revenues team on 01494 732074.
If you are entitled to a council tax refund, the council will send you a letter showing how much you are owed and will then send you a refund using information we already hold.
Below is a message I recieved from Thames Valley Police via a Community Message from Amersham Watch Office, Thames Valley Police sent it out on behalf of Trading Standards.
We have reports of a company called Roof Exchange UK who have been cold calling in the South of the County, but they could be operating in other parts of Buckinghamshire.
A person calling himself James Smith, will cold call on the home owner and state that the roof needs some repair. He may offer to repair the roof for a small fee, then after some work has been completed he will say there are other problems with the roof and the price will increase considerably.
The company also appears not to give cancellation rights in writing. We advise people not to deal with cold calling traders.
Building contractors can be found by visiting the Buy With Confidence website. Traders on the BWC website have all been Trading Standards approved. Companies offering services in your home must give cancellation rights in writing. Where possible get written quotations before agreeing to have work done. Information is also available from the Bucks County Council website Doorstep selling information.
If you are approached by a Mr. James Smith of Roof Exchange UK, please contact the Police immediately – they in turn will alert Trading Standards.
Yesterday was Patch Tuesday, this week Microsoft has released a Critical Update for Internet Explorer which is covering versions 6,7,8,9 (so basically all of them!). This update is to deal with an exploit which according to Microsoft could allow remote code execution if a user visits a malicious, specially crafted Web page using IE.
So basically this means that visiting any website that is being used by scammers will give them access to your PC to run whatever code the scammers want. The site doesn’t have to be porn or other “dodgy” site – scammers have created fake sites that appear to check your computer for viruses, spyware or similar (in reality they were fake and announced you’d need to pay for software to remove the anti virus, if you paid the software that was offered was malicious and scammers emptied victim accounts). If Microsoft are including IE6 in the critical update it implies that is has been around for quite a long time after all IE6 was launched on March 18, 1999.
Make sure that you have updated your Internet Explorer, you can check whether you’re updated by going to Internet Explorer and checking the version number and latest update (see image above). The update is KB2530548 or IE 9.01.
You can also check on updates via the Control Panel. Open the Control Panel and search for installed updates and look for KB2530548 (see above image).
Further Information:
Microsoft Update: Microsoft Update KB2530548
ZDNet: Article on ZDNet about Microsoft releases Critical Security Update.
The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. ~