Bank of America SiteKey Scam

Tuesday March 23, 2010

Scammers count on scaring you into a knee jerk reaction. And what better way to scare you than to claim your bank account has been restricted? In the latest phishing scam targeting Bank of America customers, the subject predictably reads: "Important message about your account". In the message itself, the scammers start off politely:

As part of our efforts to provide a safe and secure environment for the
online community, we regularly screen account activity.
Our review of your account has identified an issue regarding its safe use.
We have placed a restriction on your account as a precaution.

Then they begin prepping you for the kill:

To lift the restriction we will require some further information from you.

If, once we review your further information and we're confident that the
use of your account does not present a safety risk to our service and
customers, we'll be happy to reinstate your account.

And then they move in for the kill:

We have sent you an attachment which contains all the necessary steps in order to restore your account access.
Download and open it in your browser.
After we have gathered the necessary information, you will regain full access to your account.

Of course, if you open that attachment (named "Site Key Verification.html") and enter the requested information, the only one gaining full access to your account will be the attackers.

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Gonzales Accomplice Gets Probation, Nets $50G

Tuesday March 23, 2010

Remember the old saying, "if you do the crime, prepare to serve the time". That doesn't seem to apply too often these days, and particularly not with cybercrime. Jeremy Jethro, found guilty of selling an Internet Explorer exploit to Albert Gonzalez - the guy behind the TJ Maxx, Heartland Payment Systems, and several other data thefts impacting tens of millions of consumers - received just three years' probation and a $10,000 fine.

Jethro received $60,000 from Gonzalez for the exploit thus netting a tidy profit of $50,000. The reason for leniency? According to his attorney, "the judge took into consideration her client's life change in 2006 when he turned to Christianity and 'renounced any aspect of any wrongful behavior'." Seems to me that an awful lot of criminals coincidentally turn to Christianity sometime after getting caught for the crime and the actual trial date. At least he should be required to tithe that $50,000 profit.

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Pictures Ruse Used to Spam Zeus/Zbot

Wednesday March 24, 2010

Scammers are spreading the Zeus/Zbot backdoor by sending an email warning recipients that (presumably embarrassing) pictures of them were posted online. The text of the email reads:

Hey, some jerk has posted your pictures (u understand what kind of pictures are there) and sent a link of them to all ur friends. I have already replied back. Said, that he is an idiot. See the link:

Clicking the link loads a bogus 'photo archive' which is actually the Zbot trojan. According to threat researcher Ivan Macalintal of Trend Micro, the email sent is highly personalized, making it appear legitimate and potentially leading to a greater number of victims falling for the scam. Pictures of the email and the file downloads are available in this Trend Micro blog post.

One easy way to cut down on the risk of social engineering attacks is to use the free Trend Micro eMail ID which helps verify the authenticity of the received mail. Trend's eMail ID works with a range of different mail providers, including Gmail, Hotmail, AIM, and Outlook. For a complete list of supported mail programs and other system requirements, see the Trend Micro eMail ID product page. And did I mention, it's free?

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TJ Maxx Attacker Gets 20 Years

Friday March 26, 2010

Albert Gonzales, who used a custom data theft trojan to steal 96 million credit and debit card numbers from retailer TJ Maxx (including daughter companies HomeGoods and Marshalls), has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Gonzales still faces sentencing for his role in the data theft leveraged at Heartland Payment Systems, 7-11 and other companies.

While carrying out his crimes, Gonzales was receiving a $75,000 annual salary as a paid informant for the U.S. Secret Service. In both the TJ Maxx and Heartland Payment Systems heists, the presence of the data theft trojans went unnoticed for considerable periods of time, prolonging the exposure and increasing the damage done.

According to Terence Spies, Chief Technology Officer at Voltage Security, "The payments industry is working hard to implement new technologies that remove credit card data from networks and databases, either by encrypting it or by storing proxy tokens. These techniques give an attacker that breaks into a merchant or processor environment nothing but useless random numbers."

Spies cautions, "Rolling these technologies out will not be trivial by any means, but technology suppliers, merchants, processors, and standards groups are all working together to make these systems strong and cost efficient to implement."

Voltage participates in several of these initiatives. According to Voltage, several payment processors, including Heartland Payment Systems, have already adopted systems like this that
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Apple iPad Testers Needed - NOT!

Monday March 29, 2010

A new scam is promising recipients that you can test and keep an Apple iPad. The bogus email arrives as follows:

Hello ,
Your contact "
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JC Penney Attempts to Bar Disclosure of Data Theft

Monday March 29, 2010

According to court documents, JCPenney was a formerly unnamed victim in the credit card heists carried out by Albert Gonzales. It hasn't yet been revealed whether credit card or customer information from JCP was actually stolen or just accessed - and with hundreds of million credit card numbers lifted, I imagine it's difficult to tell. Regardless, given current laws that require companies to divulge when consumer data has been put at risk, it seems amiss at best that JCPenney has been able to dodge the requirement for reporting this long.

Some might even ask whether JCPenney's unwillingness to step forward is counter to the best interests of their customer. That allegation would beg the question of whether it was truly safe to shop there. Unless you plan on using cash.

The court documents naming JCPenney were procured by the Open Security Foundation and published by DataLossDB which reports such incidents on behalf of consumers. As they state, "judge for yourself". To make an informed decision on what JCP did, or did not do, see: "JCPenney has dodged a huge bullet... until now".

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Beware Facebook Free MacBook Air Offer

Tuesday March 30, 2010

For over a year now, Facebook users have been periodically plagued with scam offers for a free MacBook Air. The pitch starts with a Facebook message from a friend of yours (aka victim) who recommends the "FREE Mac-Book - Product Testers Wanted
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