Scammers

It never ceases to amaze me what some people will do to try to scam others.

From my work email:

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Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:09:35 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <201007172109.o6hl9zkn065571@vrrmedia.webair.com>
To:
Subject: SEND YOUR PROVABLE DETAILS IMMEDIATELY
From: GOOGLE INC
Reply-To: mr.lazslobock1@gmail.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Custom-SpamThreshold: 16
X-SpamScore: 11
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X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 100717-0, 07/17/2010), Inbound message
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean

Dear Award winner

This is to inform you that you have won yourself an Award of One Million Five Hundred Thousand Pounds (GBP1,500,000) in the Google 11 Years Anniversary Awards as organized by the Anniversary Centre of Google Inc., held on May 21st, 2010 in London, United Kingdom.

The Anniversary Centre of Google Inc selected your email id as of one it's 20 chosen fortunate winner to receive this award.

The Anniversary Centre of Google Inc as a part of their for-profit philanthropic wing (GOOGLE.ORG) promotion. Awards MUST be claimed by the email owner ONLY, not later than 30 days from the day of notification.

Award Reference code: GOOGLE568A2010
File number: G255

Send your complete personal information with your Award Ref. and File no. to us to enable us process your Prize;

1. Full name, 2. Country, 3. Contact Address, 4.Sex, 5. Age, 6. Occupation, 7. Telephone/Fax no., 8. Email. Yahoomail/gmail

Director of Peoples Operations: Mr. Laszlo Block
E-Mail: mr.lazslobock1@gmail.com , laszlobock1@gmail.com

Tel: +44
Fax: +44


Please do not reply if you are NOT the owner of this email address

Congratulations!! Sincerely Yours,

Google Management
===


I deleted my addy, their ip and phone number, but the rest is unchanged. These people are scum, preying on the naive.

Frank

Virus evolution

Originally, Virus writers were experimenting to see if they could do something specific. There was one, for instance, that would make the user type “Happy Birthday Joshi” on a specific date. Unfortunately, in this case, the author made a mistake. On that date, any 3 ½ in floppy disks in the machine at the time would be wiped clean.

As time went on, Virus Writers became more malicious. Their goal was to infect as many computers as possible. Once infected, the virus would try to spread through Network Shares. These were easy to catch, for the most part, since they also tried to copy to printer shares. It was obvious that something was going on when a shared printer suddenly started printing garbage characters.

The next evolution was when the internet became big. Virus Writers then started writing ‘mass mailing’ viruses where your computer got infected and immediately sent out emails to everyone in the user’s address book, enticing them to click on the attachment.

The most recent evolution brought money into the picture. This style uses ActiveX, which is a component of Internet Explorer. If someone either typos a website name and ends up at an infected website, they go to a hijacked website, or a legitimate site runs an infected Banner Advertisement, an ActiveX script runs. This opens a 1 pixel by 1 pixel Internet Explorer window in the background, without the user’s knowledge, and downloads a virus install executable directly to their computer. Once downloaded, it runs the executable. After a short wait, the malware notifies the user that their computer is ‘infected’ with hundreds of spyware/malware ‘infections’, offering to scan further. Sometimes it changed the background image, too. The virus then says that it can fix the computer, but you need to pay a certain amount to register the software. (Usually $35 to $55)

The software does nothing but make the computer a “zombie”, controlled by someone else. ‘Registering’ also opens the user up for Identity Theft.

All computers should have legitimate antivirus software installed. However, the antivirus software is only as good as its latest definitions. If the computer is running current up to date definitions, and someone were to release a new version of a virus, it is still possible to get infected by it. For instance, someone writes a virus and releases it right now. It can be up to 1 to 2 days before the antivirus vendors get a copy, figure out how it works, how to detect it, and how to remove it. During that time, the computer could be infected, and not know it since it doesn’t yet know what to look for.


It has been a long trip since this all started. Who knows what the futre trend will be, but one thing is certain. Viruses and other malware will still be around.