Another threat rearing its ugly head

Check us out at http://www.vslcomputers.com/

We should begin this post by describing “Social Engineering”.  Social engineering, as it relates to this discussion, is the process of the bad guys fooling good guys into doing something unwittingly.

A popular example of this is when you supposedly receive an email from PayPal that wants you to click a link to fix some problem with your account.  The link will lead you to a fake PayPal page in the hopes that you will enter your user name and password that the bad guy can then use for their own purposes (since you entered that information on their fake site).  The social engineering aspect is that the bad guy fooled you into entering this information instead of using some kind of technology to capture your keystrokes or hacking the PayPal account by guessing a username and password.  This type of attack is categorized as phishing… the bad guys will email thousands of people hoping that a few will take the bait.

See my fake PayPal page here:

http://www.vslcomputers.com/fakepaypal/fake.html

It seems that a new method of trying to dupe people now is for the bad guy to obtain access to the good guys email, read the email and then generate a message based on what they’ve learned about their victim.

Someone could gain access to your account and send the following:

Hey Sheldon… this is Uncle Louie.  As you know I’m vacationing in Germany this week and I’ve lost my wallet!  Can you loan me a couple of thousand dollars to hold me over until I get back?  If you can, just send the money by following the instructions below… I understand you if don’t wish to do this… in fact I hate to ask but I’m desperate.  Anyway Gertrude and I are doing fine otherwise… We are checking our email sporadically via the library…  Thanks!

They finish the email with official looking instructions on how to send them money.

Who would fall for this?  How about the people who think the King of Nigeria is about to flee his country and wants to send YOU his $300,000,000 for safe keeping until he arrives in the states.  Or the people who have $2,000,000 waiting for them because they were left in a will?  Or the people that go ahead and pay the $59.99 to have their computer cleaned because a pop-up stated that they have a 172 infections and need to be cleaned?

We weary… be leery…

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