The Nightmare before Christmas
Our last Newsletter asked you if you ever had any issued with your company's web hosting. Just before the Week of Christmas, another series of attacks on the Internet was taking place. It happened on the week before Christmas, to a Consumer Credit Advocate that we've hosted on Email using our SpamZapper solution. Unfortunately she was not using our Secure Hosting services, and what happened took weeks to recover. Fortunately, Denise called us and had her Webmaster contact us for assistance. You can read about this entire event on Denise's Blog, My Nightmare Before Christmas; The Grinch who shut me down, but not up...There is a Happy Ending. We are now Hosting Denise directly, and the amount of Spam she was getting from her website is gone!. Call us today, and we will discus
s your needs, and potential solutions with you. |
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ABS Computer Technology, Inc.
Visit us On-Line
519 Nichols Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15237
Phone: 412-635-7488
Fax: 412-635-2546
We are Email, Internet, Linux and Network Security
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ABS Computer Technology, Inc is proud to be recognized by the Better Business Bureau reliability program. |
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Dear Internet User,
In this issue I want to introduce to you some important tools which you should consider to improve your personal security while on the internet.
Already this year, with the inauguration of our New President, we have disclosed the Largest Security Breach ever in a our Credit Card Processing centers.
Please take a moment to read our newsletter and learn how you can help prevent the disclosure of your personal information on-line.
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Preview the Links in your Email.
The next time you read your Email, please take a second to preview the websites BEFORE you visit them!
More often than not you have probably received an email message with a link to a web site on it. How many times have you just clicked the link to see what was there?
I'm going to bet that almost all of you reading this (and probably MOST of your friends) just click the link to see what is next. Is this true?
Do you know who else is betting that you do? The Hackers, because they know that you are curious to see what is there. (this is probably as easy as 'shooting fish in a barrel')
Using human curiosity against us, is a form of Social Engineering meant to infect you, your computer, and possibly also get personal information from you, without your knowing it.
So the Bad Guys (the Hackers), know how to get you to come to them. You see if you, if you come to them, then it is easier for them to attack you, without your knowing.
So, the hackers have an advantage, and now we can begin to show you how to protect yourself. It is going to take only a moment of your time, but you will need to stop the current behavior of just clicking every web link you receive in email.
First of all, these leasons require that you install the Thunderbird Mail Reader. Since I have only used Thunderbird for reading email, I will not be able to answer questions about Microsoft Outlook, as I do not recommend or use this product.
The example for this leason is in the next section, please click on the message sections as you are instructed to.
The first thing that you should do when reviewing an Email message is to validate the sender. To do this, simply pass the mouse pointer over the Words: Google Alerts in the From: field, you will see the address in the bottom panel of Thunderbird. In this case, you will see mailto:googlealerts-noreply@google.com
While Google Alerts may send out messages with a noreply address, not many services use this type of reply address for a legitimate email address.
You can do the same with the email address in the To: field. Not surprisingly, it has the email address of Denise Richardson (after all, she did receive it).
The next link to review is the link for Denise Richardson in the Body of the message. Please do not get overwhelmed, there is two simple things I wish to explain to you.
The link for Denise Richardson looks like this:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://cyfs- byolint co cc/236.html&ct=ga&cd=K_LxQ4O06Yw&usg=AFQjCNF__CvDyQh7FOGcnj4ReQPCZ88d9A
1. The first thing that I want you to observe is that there are 2 http:// marks in the web link. This is usually an indication that the address is going to use the first site to pass information to the second site. This is called Relaying. Relaying is BAD with websites, because you do not know what is going to happen.
2. The second thing that I want you to notice is that the domain name in the second http:// link is to byolint co.cc (I have crippled the address so that it does not work by replacing the . with a space) - DO NOT GO THERE! THEY WANT TO INFECT YOU!
Lastly, any link should go to only one address, not through multiple hosts, or use multiple http://. At least none of your friends would appear to send you a message with this matter of complexity, would they?
Finally, the Domain name byolint.co.cc is not registered in the WHOIS database, but the address for the website is registered for use in Frankfurt, Germany.
The remaining three links are valid links to pages in Google, this helps the Hackers by sending an email message similar in format to ones that you may be used to receiving.
While it may take extra effort to scan a message before you click on the links, the time you spend will end up saving you from an unwanted infection in the long run.
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Example message - Google Alert
We take internet security seriously. This is a sample message which was delivered to Denise Richardson (a real person, and one of our customers). Denise is well known as a Consumer Credit Advocate. When Denise received this Email, it looked legitimate at first glance, but we will show you how to preview the links so that you don't get burnt. In this example, the link for Denise Richardson is set to a site which will infect your machine. PLEASE DO NOT CORRECT THE LINK AND VISIT THE SITE. ----- Original Message ----- From: Google Alerts
To: deniserichardson@givemebackmycredit.comSent: Monday, January 05, 2009 10:14 PM
Subject: Google Alert - Denise Richardson consumer advocate
Google Web Alert for: Denise Richardson consumer advocate
Denise RichardsonDenise Richardson. Consumer Advocate Denise Richardson Says You. ... Consumer advocate denise richardson says you may be surprised what s on your credit ...
This as-it-happens Google Alert is brought to you by Google.
Remove this alert. Create another alert.
Manage your alerts.
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