Phishing 101: How Not to Get Hooked

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You’d think that it would be as easy as pie to avoid getting reeled in by a phishing scam. After all, all you need to do is avoid clicking on a link inside an email or text message. How easy is that?

A phishing scam is a message sent by a cybercriminal to get you to click on a link or open an attachment. Clicking on the link or attachment downloads a virus, or takes you to a malicious website (that often looks like real site).

You are then tricked into entering user names, passwords and other sensitive account information on the website that the scammer then uses to take your money, steal your identity or impersonate you.

Intel Security recently designed a quiz to help people identify a phishing email. Sometimes they’re so obvious; for example, they say “Dear Customer” instead of your actual name, and there are typos in the message. Another tip-off is an unrealistic “threat” of action, such as closing down your account simply because you didn’t update your information. Some scammers are more sophisticated than others and their emails look like the real thing: no typos, perfect grammar, and company logos.

The quiz showed ten actual emails to see if all of us could spot the phishing ones.

  • Out of the 19,000 respondents, only 3% correctly identified every email.
  • 80% thought at least one phishing email was legitimate.
  • On average, participants missed one in four fraudulent emails.

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The biggest issue may not be how to spot a phishing scam as much as it is to simply obey that simple rule: Don’t click links inside emails from unknown senders! And don’t download or click on attachments. Now if you’re expecting your aunt to send you vacation photos and her email arrives, it’s probably from her.

But as for emails claiming to be from banks, health plan carriers, etc.…DON’T click on anything! In fact, you shouldn’t even open the message in the first place.

And I can’t say this enough: Sorry, but you aren’t special enough to be the one person to be chosen as the recipient of some prince’s lofty inheritance. And nobody wins a prize out of the blue and is emailed about it.

A few more things to keep in mind:

  • An email that includes your name can still be a phishing scam.
  • Don’t fret about not opening a legitimate message. If it is, they’ll call you or send a snail mail.
  • You can also contact the company directly to see if they emailed you anything.

Want to see how your phishing skills stack up? Take the Intel Security quiz, here.

Robert Siciliano is an Online Safety Expert to Intel Security. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Mobile was Hacked! Disclosures.

How your Brain is affected by Phishing Scams

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A recent study says that people are more mindful of online safety issues than what experts had previously believed. An article on phys.org says that Nitesh Saxena, PhD, wanted to know what goes on in users’ brains when they come upon malicious websites or malware warnings.

13DSaxena points out that past studies indicated that users’ minds are pretty much blank when it comes to malware signs. Saxena and colleagues used brain imaging (functional MRI) for their study.

Study subjects were asked to tell the authentic login pages of popular websites from phony replications. A second task for them was to differentiate between harmless pop-ups while they read some news articles and pop-ups with malware warnings.

The fMRI showed brain activity as it corresponded to the users’ online activity: attention, making decisions, solving problems. The images lit up for both tasks, but of course, fMRI can’t tell if the user is making the right decision.

That aside, the results were that the users were accurate 89 percent of the time with the malware warning task. When users were met with malware warnings, the language comprehension area of the brain lit up. Saxena states in the phys.org article, “Warnings trigger some sort of thought process in people’s brains that there is something unusual going on.”

The accuracy rate of telling an authentic website from a phony one was just 60 percent. Saxena believes this might be because users don’t know what to look for. For instance, they don’t know to look at the URL, which can give away the phoniness.

This study also had the participants complete a personality evaluation to measure impulsiveness. The fMRI images revealed differences based on impulsivity. Saxena says there was a “negative correlation” between brain activity and impulsive behavior. The impulsive user is prone to hastily clicking “yes” to proceed, when a malware warning pops up.

There was less brain activity in the key cerebral areas of decision-making in the users who had greater degrees of impulsivity.

This study has potential applications for the improved design of malware warning systems. These results can also assist company managers by identifying impulsive workers who need stronger online security training.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing  identity theft prevention.

Protect your Data during Holiday Travel

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You’re dreaming of a white Christmas, and hackers are dreaming of a green Christmas: your cash in their pockets. And hackers are everywhere, and are a particular threat to travelers.
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  • Prior to leaving for your holiday vacation, have an IT specialist install a disk encryption on your laptop if you plan on bringing it along; the hard drive will have encryption software to scramble your data if the device it lost or stolen.
  • Try to make arrangements to prevent having to use your laptop to handle sensitive data. If you must, then at least store all the data in an encrypted memory stick or disk encryption as stated above. Leave as much personal data behind when you travel.
  • Before embarking on your vacation, make sure that your devices are equipped with comprehensive security software such as antivirus, antispyware, antiphishing and a firewall so that you can have safe online connections.
  • If your device has a virtual private network (VPN), this will encrypt all of your transmissions when you use public Wi-Fi. Hackers will see gibberish and thus won’t have any interest in you. Don’t ever connect to an unprotected Wi-Fi network!
  • Always have your laptop and other devices with you, even if it’s to momentarily leave the hotel’s lobby (where you’re using your device) to get some water. When staying at friends or family, don’t leave your devices where even other guests in the house you’re staying at can get to them, even if they’re kids. Just sayin’.
  • Add another layer of protection from “visual hackers,” too. Visual hackers peer over the user’s shoulder to see what’s on their screen. If they do this enough to enough people, sooner or later they’ll catch someone with their data up on the screen.
  • Visual hackers can also use cameras and binoculars to capture what’s on your screen. All these thieves need to do is just hang nearby nonchalantly with your computer screen in full view, and wait till you enter your data. They can then snap a picture of the view.
  • This can be deterred with 3M’s ePrivacy Filter, when combined with their 3M Privacy Filter. When a visual hacker tries to see what’s on your screen it provides up to 180 degree comprehensive privacy protection. Filters provide protection by blackening the screen when viewed from the side. Furthermore, you’ll get an alert that someone is creeping up too close to you. The one place where a visual hacker can really get an “in” on your online activities is on an airplane. Do you realize how easy it would be for someone sitting behind you (especially if you both have aisle seats) to see what you’re doing?

Robert Siciliano is a Privacy Consultant to 3M discussing Identity Theft and Privacy on YouTube. Disclosures.

What is Pharming?

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I was surfing on YouTube the other day and found this hilarious video mash-up of Taylor Swift’s song “Shake It Off” and an 80s aerobics video. For a lot of kids today, mash-ups are all the rage—whether it’s combining two videos, two songs, or two words.

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-online-risks-sign-road-banner-image34668294Mash-ups have even caught on in the tech world. The word pharming is actually a mash-up of the words phishing and farming. Phishing is when a hacker uses an email, text, or social media post asking for your personal and financial information. On the other hand, pharming doesn’t require a lure. Instead of fishing for users, the hacker just sets up a fake website, similar to farming a little plot of land, and users willingly and unknowingly come to them and give them information.

How does it work? Most hackers use a method called DNS cache poisoning. A DNS, or domain name system, is an Internet naming service that translates meaningful website names you enter in (like twitter.com) into strings of numbers for your computer to read (like 173.58.9.14). The computer then takes you to the website you want to go to. In a pharming attack, the hacker poisons the DNS cache by changing the string of numbers for different websites to ones for the hacker’s fake website(s). This means that even if you type in the correct web address, you will be redirected to the fake website.

Now, you go to the site and thinking that it is a legitimate site, you enter your credit card information, or passwords. Now, the hacker has that information and you are at risk for identity theft and financial loss.

To prevent yourself from a pharming attack, make sure you:

  • Install a firewall. Hackers send pings to thousands of computers, and then wait for responses. A firewall won’t let your computer answer a ping. The firewalls of some operating systems are “off” as a default, so make sure your firewall is turned on and updated regularly.
  • Protect against spyware. Spyware is malware that’s installed on your device without your knowledge with the intent of eavesdropping on your online activity. Spyware can be downloaded with “free” programs so be leery of downloading free software and don’t click links in popup ads or in suspicious e-mails.
  • Use comprehensive security software. McAfee LiveSafe™ service includes a firewall and scans your computer for spyware. It also protects all your smartphones and tablets as well. And make sure to keep your security software updated.

For more tips on protecting your digital life, like Intel Security on Facebook or follow@IntelSec_Home on Twitter!

Robert Siciliano is an Online Security Expert to McAfee. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Mobile was Hacked!  Disclosures.

How to win the War on Phishing

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A phishing attack is a trick e-mail sent randomly to perhaps a million recipients, and the thief counts on the numbers game aspect: Out of any given huge number of people, a significant percentage will fall for the trick.

13DThe trick is that the e-mail contains certain information or is worded in such a way as to get the recipient to click on the link in the message. Clicking on the link brings the user to a website that then downloads malware.

Or, the website is made to look like it’s from the user’s bank or some other major account, asking for their account number and other pertinent information like passwords and usernames; they type it in (and it goes straight to the thief). Sometimes this information is requested straight in the e-mail’s message, and the user sends the information in a direct reply.

The Google Online Security Blog did some analysis of phishing e-mails and came up with the following:

Malicious websites really do work: 45 percent of the time. As for getting users to actually type in their personal information, this happened 14 percent of the time. Even very fake looking sites went over the heads of three percent. Three percent sounds like peanuts, but what’s three percent of one million?

Hasty hackers. Once the hacker gets the login information, he’s into the victim’s account within 30 minutes 20 percent of the time. They may spend a lot of time roaming around in the account, which often includes changing the password to keep the victim out.

Those strange e-mails. Ever get an e-mail in which the sender is a very familiar person, but the message was also cc’d to a hundred other people? And the body message only says, “Hi there!” and then there’s a link? This is likely an e-mail from the victim’s e-mail account (which the hacker knows how to get into), and the thief copied everyone in the victim’s address book. Recipients of these phishing attacks are 36 percent more likely to fall for the ruse than if the attack comes as a single message from an unfamiliar sender.

Fast adaption. Phishing specialists are good at quickly changing their strategies to keep up with changes in security.

The Google Online Security Blog recommends:

  • Not all “spam blockers” block 100 percent of all the phishing e-mails. Some will always slip through to your in-box. Never send personal information back to the sender of e-mails requesting personal information. Never visit the site through the link in the e-mail.
  • Use two-step verification whenever an account setup offers it. This will make it difficult for the hacker to get into your account.
  • Make sure your accounts have a backup e-mail address and phone number.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to TheBestCompanys.com discussing  identity theft prevention. For Roberts FREE ebook text- SECURE Your@emailaddress -to 411247. Disclosures.

Phishing Alert: 8 Tips to protect yourself from Attacks

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It’s as easy for hackers to phish out your personal data as it is to sit in a canoe on a still pond, cast the bait and wait for the fish to bite.

13DSo many people fail to learn about phishing scams, a favorite and extremely prevalent scam among cybercriminals.

A type of phishing scam is to lure the user onto a malicious website. ZeuS (Zbot) is such an example, planted on websites; visit that site and it will download a virus to your device that will steal your online banking information, then forward it to a remote server, where the thief will obtain it. Very clever.

But that ingenuity is contingent on someone being gullible enough to open a phishing e-mail, and then taking that gullibility one step further by clicking on the link to the malicious site.

10 Phishing Alerts

  • An unfamiliar e-mail or sender. If it’s earth-shaking news, you’ll probably be notified in person or via a voice phone call.
  • An e-mail that requests personal information, particularly financial. If the message contains the name and logo of the business’s bank, phone the bank and inquire about the e-mail.
  • An e-mail requesting credit card information, a password, username, etc.
  • A subject line that’s of an urgent nature, particularly if it concludes with an exclamation point.

Additional Tips

  • Keep the computer browser up-to-date.
  • If a form inside an e-mail requests personal information, enter “delete” to chuck the e-mail.
  • The most up-to-date versions of Chrome, IE and Firefox offer optional anti-phishing protection.
  • Check out special toolbars that can be installed in a web browser to help guard the user from malicious sites; this toolbar provides fast alerts when it detects a fraudulent site.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing  identity theft prevention. For Roberts FREE ebook text- SECURE Your@emailaddress -to 411247. Disclosures.

Phishing Alert: 10 Tips To Protect Your Business From Attacks

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It’s becoming too easy for criminals to get their hands on your banking information, due to your employees’ ignorance of phishing scams.

13DMalware attacks have soared recently, targeting banks for the purpose of stealing online banking information. Over 200,000 new infections occurred between July and September 2013—the highest jump in the past 11 years, according to a TrendsLab Security report. Cyber-criminals are ubiquitous on this planet, and phishing is a favorite among their arsenal of attacks, a way to gain access to computers, as well as infecting a computer.

ZeuS (aka Zbot) is a common malware planted on websites. If a website is infested with ZeuS, or other malware, and you visit that site, your computer will become infested with ZeuS. Once settled in, ZeuS steals online banking credentials, and then transmits these details to a remote server, where the cyber-criminals can access it. But for ZeuS to spread, that means someone is opening a phishing email and clicking on the link that leads to the virus-inhabited website.

Who’s clicking on these links? Unfortunately, some of your employees probably are. According to a recent eWeek article, 18 percent of phishing messages are opened in the workplace—and yes, this includes clicking the accompanying malicious link.

That’s not all—sometimes the numbers can go even higher. According to the report, one particular phishing campaign yielded a 72 percent clicking response on the link.

Furthermore, the report states, 71 percent of users’ computers have a higher susceptibility of infection due to having outdated versions of popular software such as Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Acrobat.

How To Stop Your Employees

Monthly training of employees to avoid suspicious emails helps knock down the percentage of clicks to 2 percent, much better than quarterly training does (to 19 percent). The report adds that cleaning recipients’ invaded computers costs the company, even though 57 percent of companies rated phishing attacks as “minimal.” However, even “minimal” impact still means a lot of cleanup for a high volume of attacks, involving IT staff response and employee downtime during system restoration.

Those who take the bait are costing you money, and the potential risk to your business is enormous. The Anti-Phishing Working Group recommends the follow tips. Share them with your employees ASAP.

  • A big red flag should go with emails that request personal financial information. If the name of the company bank is mentioned, arrange a phone call to that bank regarding the suspicious email.
  • Be leery of exciting or worrisome statements designed to rattle emotions rather than sink in logically; think before you click!
  • Be highly suspicious of a message asking for a password, username, credit card information, date of birth or other very private details of yourself or your company.
  • If you don’t recognize the sender’s name or address, or have no idea what the message could pertain to, simply ignore it altogether. It’s never urgent to click a link; you won’t get fired if you don’t.
  • Never enter confidential financial (or personal) data in a form inside the email.
  • A special toolbar, installed in the Web browser, can help protect you from fraudulent sites. The toolbar compares online addresses with those of known phishing sites and will provide a prompt alert before you have a chance to click or give out private information.
  • The latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer have optional anti-phishing protection.
  • Bank, debit and credit account statements should be regularly checked for suspicious transactions.
  • If any transactions look suspicious or unfamiliar, alert appropriate personnel to contact the relevant financial institution.
  • The computer browser should always be kept up-to-date. Security patches should be installed.

Robert Siciliano CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com, personal security and identity theft expert and speaker is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen. See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video.

iTunes a Platform for Phish Scammers

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iTunes users all over the world are being hooked in a possible phishing scam that siphons cash out of their PayPal accounts. Phishing scams, of course, consist of emails that appear to be coming from a legitimate, trusted business. These emails are often designed to trick the victim into revealing login credentials. Once the phishers have access to the account, they begin withdrawing funds.

In this case, scammers used victims’ iTunes accounts to purchase gift cards, which were paid for by the victims’ linked PayPal accounts. Some victims of this particular scam have has just a few dollars stolen, while others have had their accounts emptied.

Gift cards are a form of currency created by the issuer. Their value is in the products or services available when cashed in. A scammer can purchase a $100 gift card and sell it online for $50. Pure profit.

There are many variations of iTunes gift card scams:

1. Scammers can easily set up websites posing as a legitimate retailer offering gift cards at a discount, having fraudulently obtained those gift cards. They may accept people’s credit cards and make fraudulent charges. In these cases, the victim can refute the charge, but will need to either cancel the credit card or persistently check their statements once their card has been compromised. Like Mom said, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

2. The system for generating codes that are embedded on a plastic card or offered as a download is nothing more than software created by the card issuer or a third party. At least one major retailer has had their gift code generation compromised, and who knows how many more have been or will be compromised in this way. Criminal hackers can then offer the codes at a significant discount.

3. iTunes gift card scams are so effective, in part due to the limited availability of iTunes downloads in certain countries. There are numerous copyright issues, with some music companies making deals with musicians and iTunes, while others refuse to do so. Scammers have capitalized on this, using it as a marketing tactic.

The best way to avoid phishing scams is to never click on links in the body of an email. Always go to your favorites menu or manually type the familiar address into your address bar. And never provide you login credentials to anyone, for any reason.

Robert Siciliano, personal security expert contributor to Just Ask Gemalto, discusses iTunes gift card scams on NBC Boston. (Disclosures)

Phishing Scam: Using the U.S. General Commander in Iraq as Phish Food

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Fishing of course is the sport of tossing a tasty wormy baited hook connected to a fishing line and patiently waiting for a fish to take the bait.

Phishing is the sport of tossing a wormy baited tasty lie connected to a wormy human and the degenerate patiently waits for a naïve victim to take the bait.

A phisher can send thousands of phish emails a day and eventually someone will get hooked.

Phishing is a $9 billion business. Unlike the ongoing depleting of the ocean’s fisheries, there are PLENTY of people out there to phish. Many of them today are from developing nations like India and China who are just getting a broadband connection to the internet and are considered fresh meat to the bad guy.

The New York Times reports “if you get an Internet appeal from Gen. Ray Odierno, the senior American commander in Iraq, asking you to pay lots of money to get your son or daughter out of combat duty, don’t believe it. And certainly don’t send the $200,000. General Odierno acknowledged that he is but one more victim of a social networking scheme offering a big — but fake — benefit, if you send big amounts of real money.”

“I’ve had several scam artists on Facebook use my Facebook page and then go out asking people for all kinds of money: ‘If you pay $200,000, your son can get sent home early,’” General Odierno said at a Pentagon news conference.

Criminals may seek out military families and target them one by one or send a blast to thousands at a time and use a ruse that pulls at the heart strings of unsuspecting families who simply want their loved-one back home.

The General posted a large warning on his social networking site. “I have this big thing on my Facebook that says, “If anybody asks you for money in my name, don’t believe it,” he said. “But it’s a problem.”

Frankly, I don’t like the idea of an American General having a Facebook page. It weird’s me out. Hopefully the high commander isn’t uploading pictures of himself doing shots of tequila while driving a tank.

My guess is there is someone out there who has the money and is probably acutely unaware of this type of scam, then is probably capable of getting hooked.  But more than likely nobody will cough up $200,000. But the scammers know to start high and they will go low. They will take a $1000.00 when it comes down to it. But they also know that people won’t argue with a General and nobody will “discount” the value of their loved-ones life. So overall it’s a pretty good scam. Just don’t take the bait.

Robert Siciliano personal security expert to ADT Home Security Source discussing Facebook scams on CNN. Disclosures.

Facebook + Hackers – Privacy = You Lose

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I’m as sick of writing about it as you are sick of reading about it. But because Facebook has become a societal juggernaut: a massive inexorable force that seems to crush everything in its way, we need to discuss it because it’s messing with lots of functions of society.

We should all now know that whatever you post on Facebook is not private. You may think it is, but it isn’t. Even though you may have gone through all kinds of privacy settings and locked down your profile, Facebook has changed them up internally so many times that they may have defaulted to something far less private then what you previously set.

Furthermore, no matter how private you have set them to, if you friend someone who you don’t know (like that human resource officer), they see what’s “private” and anyone on the “inside” can easily replicate anything you post to the world.

The activist groups waging what amounts to an undeclared war against the social-networking site for the last year, complete with no fewer than three letters to federal regulators claiming Facebook’s actions are illegal said that they’re hardly ready to declare a truce.

Attacks targeting Facebook users will continue, and they could easily become even more dangerous. Computerworld reports “There are limitations to what Facebook can do to stop this,” said Patrik Runald, a U.K.-based researcher for Websense Security Labs. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see another attack this weekend. Clearly, they work.”

Websense has identified more than 100 variations of the same Facebook attack app used in the two attacks, all identical except for the API keys that Facebook requires.

What does this mean to you?

For crying out loud stop telling the world you hate your boss, neighbor, students’ teachers, or spouse and you’d like to boil a bunny on the stove to teach them a lesson. I guarantee even if you are kidding, someone won’t like it. What you say/do/post, lasts forever.

Stop playing the stupid 3rd party games. When you answer “25 questions about whatever” that data goes straight into the hands of some entity that you would never have volunteered it to.

Make sure you PC is secured. Keep your operating system up to date with security patches and anti-virus and don’t download anything from any email you receive or click links in the body of any email. Once you start messing with these files you become a Petri dish spreading a virus.

Robert Siciliano personal security expert to Home Security Source discussing Facebook scams on CNN.