Easy To Guess Passwords

Most people have realised that they need to have passwords and pin numbers that can’t be easily guessed – don’t use your birthday or year of birth or the dog’s name or a common word etc.

But latest reports show there are still many people with passwords or pin numbers that are very easy to guess.

28% of people in a recent survey had a password that is in the top 20 most common ones and hence could be guessed very easily.

If they can be easily guessed they you could be hacked and lose money and more.

If your pin number is on the list below then change it urgently.

1234
1111
0000
1212
7777
1004
2000
4444
2222
6969

If you password is ”password” or “123456” or “12345678” then change it urgently.

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October 13, 2021

Ransomware Pay or Not Pay

Ransomware is software designed to block access to your computer device or system by encrypting files and demanding a payment for the unlock key.

This malware typically gets into your device or system through a phishing email or can be through a weakness in your software protection.

Once in, the malware encrypts everything it can find and then issues a warning that payment must be made (usually in Bitcoin) in order to get the decryption key necessary to restore your files.

Businesses and individuals with proper backups and security can usually get around the temporary inconvenience caused by the attack but for many it be a disaster and they have to choose whether to get in an expert to try to recover the systems or to pay the ransom and hope the criminals hand over the decryption key.

Statistics on how many people choose to pay the ransom are hard to find and vary from a few percent to more than half.

The general principle on ransom is to not pay as that would encourage the criminals to keep using the tactic.

There are cases where people chose to pay, only to receive a following larger demand and were never able to get the key.

In other case, people pay and do get the unlock key.

So, it can be a tricky choice – pay and hope to get the key or refuse and cope with the damage caused.

There is no certain answer to this problem, except protect your devices and systems so you never have to make the choice

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

October 11, 2021

The Google Ads Scam

This scam is a variation on the endless scam emails telling us that our email accounts are blocked or some other online account has been stopped.

This one targets website owners by using spam lists that include email addresses copied from websites.

Email title is ‘Your Google Ads Account Has Been Suspended’.

Then it says something like “Your Google Ads account 747-129-4244 has been suspended for Circumventing systems”.

The account number they quote is random of course, hoping that the email receiver has no idea of their Google Ads account number.

There is a link to click to reinstate the account and that goes to a scam website page www. 56712220912sol.com which is obviously not Google. No doubt the fake webpage would ask for your Google login and password to verify but would send them to the scammer.

The scammer who sent the emails must be lazy and/or stupid as part of the header of the message is in French and quotes a different account number.

Just a simple phishing scam where the scammer wants your Google login and password.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

October 10, 2021

Stupidest Spam of the Week Anti-Diabetes

A moronic scammer is sending out messages with the idea of ‘anti-diabetes’ in them

“Grow your own anti-diabetic cells”

“Activate your anti-diabetic cells”

“This changes everything about diabetes”

This is obvious rubbish – it would like having anti-broken leg cells or anti-fat cells.

“it finally proves something doctors could have never thought possible:”

Supposedly it is a fruit that you can add to breakfast and it will make all diabetes drugs worthless.

Just click the link to find the truth.

No, just a pathetic scammer out to con desperate people.

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October 9, 2021

Time-Wasters Update

Fiona Powell of carpenterios.pt tells me my account is 30 days past due date and this requires my immediate attention. I should contact her to setup a payment plan and the email includes two phone numbers. The email doesn’t say what the invoice is actually for which a real reminder would. It is a strange scam email as you cannot pay an invoice when you don’t have a copy of it and hence know the amount involved. Perhaps a forgetful scammer or just a stupid one.

An email claiming to be from Tesco tells me I have been selected as one of only 250 people to receive a Tesco survey and in return will get a gift voucher worth serious money at Tesco. Nope. Tesco does not do this kind of amateur Marketing. Lots of scammers use fake surveys to get your confidential information. Do not trust this kind of email.

Miss Monica Stone of Florida, USA tells me she is a registered representative in a Bitcoin investment company. So far she has introduced more than 750 people into Bitcoin investment and they are all earning good profits. She wants to introduce me to the money making opportunities. All lies of course. Her email address is customer_mers53451029812 and it’s a Yahoo personal address. So she’s just an evil scammer looking for people to fall for a Bitcoin scam or to get their details so she can sell them to other Bitcoin scammers.

David Moore says he has an offer for me – he wants to repatriate funds to my country although he obviously doesn’t know which country that is. He says he works in a US bank. The email sender’s address is a Myron Grey so this scammer cannot even be consistent with his fake name. Just a typical phishing email after your confidential details.

Most scammers are dumb as dirt but this latest one cannot even count. The message says my email account has almost exceeded its limit and shows a graphic to demonstrate that it is using 1279 MB out of 2000 MB available. That’s not what anyone else would say is almost at its limit. The message is from an Argentinian email domain that is nothing to do with our email provider.

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October 8, 2021

Have Fun With The Scammers

For a scammer time is their biggest asset, so wasting their time really annoys them.

The simple approach is to listen then say something like

“Oh, just got to turn the cooker off – back in a minute”

Or “There’s someone at the door – hold on”

Or “Hold on – just got to get something”

Or anything similar

Then leave them hanging on.

You can prolong this by going back to the call for a minute then excusing yourself again for another long break while the scammer waits and waits. They do give up and put the phone down to move on to the next target.

But to really have fun at their expense, requires a little more imagination.

e.g. 1. Jack says “A scammer called claiming to be from Microsoft Support and wanting to help me sort out problems with my computer.

I agreed and let him talk through what to do but I was using my toaster rather than my computer”.

“So, now you can go to your browser”

“What’s that?”

“Browser, that’s the icon you click to access the Internet”

“OK. I’ve got a green light and a red light – is it one of them?”

“Can you move the mouse down to the bottom of the screen?”

“I don’t have any mice in my home – it’s very clean”

And so on till the dummy realised he was being taken for a ride.

e.g. 2. Bill says “I like to try to sell them something e.g. I’m glad you called cause today is your lucky day. I have a new delivery of tooth fairies and I can do a great deal with you. These are authentic, organic, low carbon tooth fairies and usually retail at 90 dollars each but today only I can get you two boxes – that’s 24 at just $14 each.

That gets them off their stupid script and confused for what to say.

e.g. 3 Jay says “I find a big enough distraction confuses them e.g. tell them you just won millions on the lottery and you’ve trying to figure out whether to leave home or go overseas”

They often break from their practiced script and start talking like a real human and ask me what I am going to do with the money.

e.g. 4. Lipu says I had one of those “your computer has a virus! scammers call me when I was driving home one time – so I kept him on the phone for the hour long drive. I kept saying I was opening the wrong folder or couldn’t find the file and then was confused about the virus and just made-up anything I could think of and started complaining about how slow the computer was.

The guy got really frustrated and clearly wanted to end the call. Finally, when I pulled into my driveway I told him – Alright, I’m home now so thanks for the entertainment. Don’t call again.”

e.g. 5. Jim said he kept getting calls from computer scammers that want to install new security for my new computer. I keep them busy for a while and ask about what computer they are talking about as I claim to have 14 which keeps them busy for a while. When she asked for my credit card to pay for the security update I give them a random number with the right number of digits and of course when they try to take payment it fails and I blame them for typing it in wrongly.

Keep ‘em frustrated and never give them any genuine information about yourself.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.