From swine flue to swine virus, bad elements operating net never seem to ran out of wicked schemes. Instead of giving the public a break, they are further tormenting the rising fears and instability of what looks like a near pandemic case. My best remedy is that these guys must be injected with their own dose of the deadly H1N1 virus, at least they might get back to their senses before dying.
Not only that, I'm quite aware of the recent rise as well of potency drugs (my spam box is so full of those... hey I don't need those stuff!!! ;) ), and people out there might not be aware that it is also being taken advantage by syndicates as well to extort cash from other people.
Here are parts of what I read from the current news on cyber crimes:
"...Cyber crooks are capitalizing on influenza fears with torrents of email promising "swine flu" news but delivering malware or dubious offers for potency drugs or penis enlargement.
An alert posted late Thursday at the US Food and Drug Administration also warns that scammers have launched websites hawking bogus products "that claim to prevent, treat, or cure" the H1N1 flu virus.
.....
"Zombie" computers infected with a dreaded Conficker virus that became an online scourge this year are among machines being used to spew flu spam crafted to trick email recipients, according to computer security firm Trend Micro."
......
For those unaware of the Confiker virus, it is one of a series of virus strains that has been intelligent enough to mutate and conceal itself, making it hard to detect and contain. It has also raised fears of a possible world-wide strike on the cyber world last April 1, 2009, though it has not actually happened, raising concerns that it might be hybernating and waiting for another date where no one would guess...
On with the other parts of the news...
"...."The thing making it worse is the misinformation out there about swine flu," Trend Micro threats research manager Jamz Yaneza said Thursday.
"These guys have picked up on all the fears people have. With all the hysteria of swine flu, some people click on these emails."
Subject boxes of spam email feature lines such as "Swine Flu Outbreak!" and "Madonna Catches Swine Flu!" in order to grab people's interest, a tactic referred to by hackers as "social engineering."
......McAfee said it has also seen keywords "swine" and "flu" used to direct Internet users to a Russia-based website booby trapped with a computer virus.
.......
"They will use any high media event or high impact news story to push their wares including the sickness and misery of others. Stay vigilant and stay safe."
Crime groups involved with Conficker, Storm and other computer viruses that take control of people's machines and weave them into "botnet" armies are most likely behind the flu spam, said Trend Micro global director of education David Perry.
......"Swine virus has become a computer virus that takes advantage of fear, confusion and the interest for information available on the Web regarding the epidemic to spread mischievous codes, junk e-mails and infect computer equipment," said the firm's director for Latin America, Juan Pablo Castro.
Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases warned Thursday that a suspicious Japanese-language email message with an attached file called "information on swine flu" had been circulating in cyberspace.
Those that order online pills from the spam pitches run risks of having credit card information stolen; paying for drugs that are never delivered, or receiving pills they probably shouldn't swallow, said Yaneza...."
So what's the lesson of the day? Be careful when opening emails, specially those with attachments. If you're not sure where it came from, or even if you're not expecting someone you know to be sending you such emails, send those mails to spam or just delete them.
To read the complete article, click here.
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