Free gift offers dupe users into giving personal data
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InfoWorld - The personal details of thousands of mostly U.S.-based PC users have been discovered stashed on a server located in France, another indication of use of the Internet to collect personal data on a vast scale.
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In a twist, security researchers have discovered a group of hackers who are exploiting a new category of victims -- aspiring Internet scammers.A Moroccan group called &quot;Mr. Brain&quot; is offering free phishing kits on a Web site hosted in France, said Paul Mutton, Internet services developer at Netcraft, a security company in Bath, England.The software packages make it easy to quickly set up a fraudulent Web site mimicking a known brand in order to trick people into divulging credit card details or bank account numbers. Templates for spam e-mail are also included, targeting brands such as Bank of America, eBay, PayPal, and HSBC.Mr. Brain&#39;s Web site lists the kits and what kind of details each one is capable of collecting, such as usernames, passwords or Social Security numbers. Netcraft posted screenshots on its Web site.But what the aspiring scammer doesn&#39;t know is that the phishing kits are designed to send any sensitive information that&#39;s collected back to e-mail accounts controlled by Mr. Brain, Mutton said.&quot;Obviously, that&#39;s why they are offering this stuff for free,&quot; Mutton said. &quot;I was impressed by it.&quot;Mr. Brain hides the special e-mail function in a blend of PHP scripts, one of which is encrypted, Mutton said. Just in case someone decrypts it, Mr. Brain has written at the top of the file &quot;Don&#39;t need to change anything here. Created by Mr. Brain Morocco Team.&quot;The scheme seems to be targeted at new phishers, Mutton said. Mr. Brain benefits since other wannabe scammers shoulder the cost and risk of finding an ISP (Internet Service Provider) to host the phishing site, Mutton said.&quot;Essentially, they&#39;re exploiting all these novice phishers -- basically getting them to do all the hard work,&quot; Mutton said.It&#39;s difficult to tell without further research how many of the free phishing kits linked with this latest scam are live on the Internet, but Mutton said Netcraft noticed one earlier this month targeting Bank of America.&quot;Clearly, these are actively being used in phishing attacks,&quot; Mutton said.
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By Lush, Edie G  Imagine you're the finance director of a quoted financial services company.  You receive an anonymous invitation to a 'Party of a Lifetime' in the form of a USB memory stick. Hopeful of some welcome distraction, you plug it into your office computer.
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Its e-mail program will trade data with social-networking sites.
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The gift that keeps on giving? Volunteer to do the financial paperwork.
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Norwegian hacker's DoubleTwist Ventures unveils its first product, a desktop client for sharing any kind of video, photo, or music file on a variety of personal gadgets.
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New variant offers holiday greetings before infecting your PC with a virus.
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It seems so easy. Gift recipients who want to provide automated lists of their wedding or baby registries simply roam their retailer of choice with a bar-code scanner and select the items they would like to receive.
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Rewards could be offered to people who inform on companies or individuals defrauding the government.
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Users have found a way to skirt copy protection on Napster Inc.'s  portable music subscription service just days after its high-profile launch, potentially letting them make CDs with hundreds of thousands of songs for free.
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In an effort to curb fraud, many stores require photo ID or other personal information. By Wendy Tanaka. PHILADELPHIA -- With the holiday presents mostly opened, a trip to the merchandise return counter can&#39;t be far behind.
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Getting a gift is like being set up on a blind date-like it or not, your friend or family member is sending you a message telling you in a coded way what they think you want, what you deserve and, on some level, who they think you are.
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Nothing shows how much you care more than a gift that makes play more fun and work less arduous. From an advanced computer mouse to a robot vacuum that sucks up nails, there's no shortage of gadgets to stuff into stockings or place under trees.
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A new genealogy Web site uses DNA to help trace family histories and lets customers use a social network to communicate findings with family and friends.
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Clearswift is giving existing customers a free Internet appliance offering spam, virus, and malware protection.
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The holidays are ripe for hackers, spammers and spies who go after personal information from holiday shoppers and write special programs to infect new computers when they first go online.
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Big companies exploring ways to verify identities online