Author: comptroller

Stupidest Scam of the Week Electric Emergency

The email title is “Trump Calls Emergency Meeting  at the White House”.

No he didn’t – this is just scammer fantasy with yet another round of mass emails about supposed magic devices that create electricity.

“Electric companies have already gathered an army of lawyers to take down this website”.

This is the usual scammer language of conspiracy and threats from Big … (in this case Big Electric) and a video to watch that tells you all of the secrets.

There are no secrets about electricity generation and anyone can buy a straight forward electric generator. But they all run on some kind of fuel and that costs money unless you’re using solar panels or a wind turbine.

The email also claims that 2% of the population have already stepped into the free energy era.

The real statistics show that about 200,000 homes have solar panels which can contribute some electricity for their needs and across the economy around 18% of electric power is generated by sustainable means including hydroelectric, solar, wind and water.

However, the scammer’s game is simply to get you to click on a link for which she gets paid.

Pathetic rubbish as usual.

Do enter your email address and click on the subscribe button on top right to keep up to date with new posts.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Zain Qaiser Jailed

A Londoner named Zain Qaiser has been jailed for blackmailing porn users worldwide.

His jail sentence of six years and five months is a major success for the National Crime Agency and the court heard he is the most prolific cyber criminal to be sentenced in the UK.

Investigators have discovered about £700,000 of his profits – but his network may have made more than £4m.

Working from his bedroom at his family home in Barking, Qaiser began to make money through “ransomware” attacks when he was only 17 years old.

This is a form of attack in which a computer is hijacked (and often the files are encrypted) and frozen by  downloaded  software until the user pays a fee for its release.

Qaiser contacted the Russian controller of one of the most potent attack tools and agreed a split of his profits.

Over 18 months, the teenager posed as a legitimate supplier of online promotions and booked advertising space on some of the world’s most popular legal pornography websites. But each of the adverts that was promoted on the websites contained a malicious tool called the “Angler”.

Any visitor to the adult site who clicked on one of Qaiser’s fake adverts would trigger the download to their own computer of the attack kit.

The software would search for vulnerabilities and If the home computer was not protected with up-to-date anti-virus software, would deliver the ransomware that seized control of the device.

The ransomware then splashes a full screen message to the user, claiming to be from the FBI or Metropolitan Police or other law enforcement agency, accusing the user of breaking the law – warning them they faced up to three years unless they paid a fine of hundreds of dollars immediately in Bitcoin.

It was calculated that one of the fake adverts appeared on 21 million web browsers every month.

Quaiser spent almost £5,000 on a Rolex watch and £2,000 on a stay in a Chelsea hotel. He regularly spent money on prostitutes, drugs and gambling, including almost £70,000 in a casino.

When a Canadian company selling advertising space asked Qaiser to stop, he launched a massive cyber attack against it, causing hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage to the business.

Qaiser initially denied the crimes and claimed he had been hacked, before pleading guilty to 11 charges – including blackmail, fraud, computer offences and possessing criminal property.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Do Porn Sites Track You

This is about the digital footprints you leave behind on every web site you visit and whether or not porn sites track you.

A digital footprint is the unique set of traceable digital actions, information and communication left behind on the Internet or on digital devices.

Digital footprints can be Passive I.e. the data is collected without your knowledge or Active I.e. you leave personal data such as your name and login.

Even in incognito mode, you will be leaving digital footprints behind you and hence it is possible that  at some point your porn viewing history may be tracked and could possibly be published. If your name is not attached to the information then there’s no problem but if someone tracked you sufficiently to be able to identify you then that information becomes much more potentially embarrassing.

On some sites you visit, adverts targeted at you will appear e.g. you look at shoes on Amazon then the next site you visit shows adverts for those shoes. This kind of tracking is for marketing purposes and is very common. But that same technology can simply collect your information and we all know computer data leaks are far from rare.

Some porn sites use Google Analytics or similar for tracking and some use specific porn trackers, such as pornvertising. As you browse, information is sent out to third part companies with that tracking data for them to build up.

There are very few cases where porn sites have used this information to the detriment of their users, but the case of Ashley Madison where all of their subscriber information was released by hackers onto the Internet shows the dangers.

Beware and certainly don’t give any personal information to such sites.

Do you have an opinion on this matter? Please comment in the box below.

Fightback Ninja Signature

 

What is Cat Phishing

Note: No cats were hurt in the creation of this article!

Phishing is where scammers send out mass emails or texts or use automated phone call systems to contact very large numbers of people, claiming  to be from a well-known organisation. Their  intention is to con people into giving up confidential information such as login and password, credit card details, bank accounts etc.

Spear Phishing is a form of phishing where the scammers try to steal confidential information from specific targets. These may be at one company or other organisation or otherwise form a group that can be targeted in this way.

The scammers collect information on their targets e.g. personal details such as their address, list of friends and contacts, employer, locations they frequent, shops they visit, utility providers of electricity, gas etc.

The attackers then pretend to be from an organisation the target has dealings with and uses the information they have to convince the target of their validity to then acquire further information.

Cat Phishing is a more specialised form of Spear Phishing where an individual is targeted and the scammer creates a whole network of apparent contacts as part of a fake characters life. This kind of scam can take months to setup and operate and is only viable if the target possesses very valuable information that can be sold by the scammers e.g. for industrial espionage purposes.

Cat phishing is also used in romance scams on dating websites, where the information they gather before contacting the victim lets them set themselves up as the perfect partner.

Cat phishing is usually through online dating websites and social media and is becoming more of a problem as more of our lives are online – it’s easier for someone to be able to get a person’s details and fake an identity.

Once the attacker brings the victim into their confidence, she typically has a reason for needing money – for travel to meet in person, or has just been robbed or to pay medical bills or to cover an emergency.

Cat phishing can be emotionally damaging in romance scams when the victim finds out that the person they’ve fallen in love with doesn’t exist and the whole thing including their feelings are fake.

How to Spot Cat Phishing Attempts

  • A too good to be true situation. The contact is highly attractive and available
  • The person appears suddenly as if from nowhere.
  • He or she has excuses why they cannot phone or use Skype or Facetime (nothing that reveals their true face)
  • He or she gets serious too quickly
  • That request for money and a story to justify it is the clincher

Do enter your email address and click on the subscribe button on top right to keep up to date with new posts.

Fightback Ninja Signature