Saturday, September 25, 2010

"Winning Notification" From FREE-LOTTO AFFILIATED OFFICE U.K

As I have shared many juicy emails with my readers; in which I won millions of dollars, Euro and pound sterling, but never received a single penny in my account or hand. Cybercriminals just knocked my door to tell me that I, the luckiest person in the world, have again won $2.0 MILLION US DOLLARS.

This time these cyber cowboys used the name of "FREE-LOTTO AFFILIATED OFFICE U.K ". One thing is just beyond my understanding, as I'm not a internet or computer specialist, how these bad peoples manage to use the domain name of "lotto.co.uk" for sending such malicious mails. If anyone of my reader can clarify this point; it will be great help for all internet users with which they can save themselves from such cyber victimization.

Let's go through the mail contents; I received today only.

=============================================

From: FREE-LOTTO AFFILIATED OFFICE U.K (info@lotto.co.uk)
Sent: Sat, September 25, 2010 7:06:03 PM
Subject: YOU HAVE WON $2,000,000.00 (Two Million United State Dollars)

FROM: GOVERNMENT ACCREDITED LICENSED
FREE-LOTTO AFFILIATED OFFICE U.K,
82 VICTORIA STREET VICTORIA LONDON SW1 U.K

We gladly announce to you the draw of the FREE-LOTTO on-line International
program held this month of September 2010. Your e-mail address was entered
as dependent clients with: Reference Serial Number: F2-003-036 and Batch
number R/45-300-07. Your email address attached to the ticket number:

54-20-17-52-34-30 that draws the lucky winning number, which consequently
won the Daily Jackpot in the first category A for the year 2010.

You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of $2,000,000.00
(Two Million United State Dollars) in cash credited to file reference
number: FR/9900034943/JPT.
This is from a total cash prize of £17,000,000 million shared amongst the
first Ten (10) lucky winners in this category i.e. Match 5 plus bonus.
To file for your claim,

Please contact our FREE-LOTTO Fiduciary

Mr. Daniel Coleman.
(Free lotto Fiduciary Department)
82 Victoria Street
Victoria London SW1 U.K
Email: camelot.lotto2010@gmx.com

Full Names:
Address:
Age:
Country:
Telephone:
Occupation:

Congratulations once more from all members and staff of this program.
Sincerely,
Kevin J. Aronin
Chairman & CEO

Copyright © 1995-2010
The FREE-LOTTO National Lottery Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of Service
- Guideline
===========================================

When I gone through a little investigation process I found few very good tips, on joewein.de LLC, which are worth sharing with my readers:

  • An email address listed inside this email has been used in a known fraud before.
  • This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
  • The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
    • "million united state dollars" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
    • ",000,000" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
    • "00,000.00" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
    • "united state dollar" (this email uses bad English)
    • "u.k " (this email uses bad English)
  • This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
    1. They don't notify winners by email.
    2. You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
    3. They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
    4. They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
    5. They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
    6. They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
    7. They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!
  • This email lists mobile phone numbers. Use of such numbers is typical for scams because they allow criminals to conceal their true location. They can receive calls in an Internet cafe from where they send you emails, while pretending to be in some office.
    • +447024069821 (UK, redirects to a mobile phone in another country)
  • This email lists free webmail addresses. Use of such addresses is typical for scams. Lotteries, banks and any but the smallest of companies do not normally use such addresses. Criminals use them to anonymously send and receive email at Internet cafes.
    • danicole209@aol.co.uk (email address has been used in a known fraud before)

Friday, September 24, 2010

Facebook Tech Problems Made Cyber Criminals a Path to Make Inroads



Beware! Its a Cyber World - - Summary:

Recently, on 23rd September, Facebook experienced serious technical difficulties which made the site unavailable for many users. This Scenario offered cyber criminals a good chance to trap innocent internet users and these culprits managed to spread a "Warning Message", purporting to from the BBC news team, claims that Facebook's main system has been hacked and users should change passwords immediately.

The warning is invalid and does not originate with BBC News. In fact, around the 23rd September 2010, Facebook suddenly unavailable for many users due to serious technical problems. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Facebook was hacked or that the password system or personal information was compromised or lost. Facebook was running normally by 24th September with no reports of security breaches or data loss.

Let's have a look tho the contents of the 'warning message':

==========================================
September 2010 you may have noticed that facebook servers have crashed and that you cannot sign in or on, this is because a group of hackers have hacked the main system, the facebook team are trying to save what they can, it is advised if facebook does come up and running again you ...change your password immediately. Thanks BBC news team try get the msg round as quick as possible.


==========================================

Beware! Its a Cyber World - - Explanation:

According to this message, which rather ironically, is circulating very rapidly around Facebook itself, the social network was compromised on 23rd September 2010 because a group of hackers gained access to Facebook's "main system". The message advises that the Facebook team is trying to save information and that, if Facebook does come back up, users should change their password immediately. The warning claims to be from the BBC news team.

However, the warning has no basis in fact and should not be taken seriously. And the message is certainly not from BBC news.

Facebook did experience serious technical problems around the 23rd September. These problems meant that Facebook was not available or ran very slowly for many users around the world. However, there are no credible reports that suggest that the network was hacked, or in any way compromised during these outages. Nor are they any reports that any data on the network was lost during the problems.

The site was apparently back up and operating normally for most users by 24th September. A 24 September post on the Facebook "About" page notes:
We've resolved the technical difficulties that caused the site to be unavailable for a number of people. Everyone should now have access to Facebook. We apologize for the inconvenience.
An earlier post noted:
We’re currently experiencing some site issues causing Facebook to be slow or unavailable for some people. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.
And a September 23 CNN news article notes:
(CNN) -- Facebook was down for many users for several hours Thursday, the second day in a row access to the site was hampered.

"Today we experienced technical difficulties causing the site to be unavailable for a number of users," a spokeswoman said in an email. "The issue has been resolved and everyone should now have access to Facebook. We apologize for any inconvenience." The problem started early Thursday afternoon and was resolved by about 5:30 p.m. ET.
Thus it seems that some prankster has used the technical problems as a cover story to add weight to this false security warning. Spreading such false information will help no one.



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