OT AOL Hoax warning

I get the same sort of email from the National Australia Bank quite regularly.
The give away was they wanted me to update my internet banking details............I dont do internet banking!
Cheers

I get half dozen of these a day like Hairy from banks I never heard of let alone had accounts with...

There is NEVER any reason for any company or financial institution to request an update of your personal details via the internet. There are a MULTITUDE of these scams going around at any one time (no real point in warning people about only one...I could list several dozen O/S banks that I have NEVER had any contact with asking me to update my details). NEVER click on any links they provide (even "for a look") as this tells them that the email address is active and can be used by other spammers/phishers.

Best thing to do is to IGNORE all requests, as trying to actually catch one of these "fly-by-night" operators is basically impossible, as they can "hijack" a computer from another country to do all the dirty work (usually a third world country using an unsecured computer/network), then harvest the data and move on to the next unsecured site...all from home several thousand km away. If the phishers see thay are being ignored on a large scale then they may decide their activities are not worthwhile.

Only thing that will fix it is the next generation of internet (IPV6) which has all security inbuilt into the data protocols and will be substantially more difficult to "crack".

Yep, like Truckster i get loads of them "from" every bank, credit union, etc on the planet, "from" eBay, paypal etc. Have been getting them for years and years, but like all spam, it is just getting more and more in volume.

The latest versions of Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer can detect and give a warning of these phishing sites. But you wouldn't want to completely trust the browser to identify phishing sites.
If you are brave and have some time to kill, you can respond to these bastards by sending false details to them. and then enjoying the picture of them wasting their time trying to crack your fictitious accounts. This is becoming quite a pastime on some areas of the internet. Recent reports had someone reversing the trick and conning a Nigerian scammer out of $ by saying they needed a deposit before they could send the asked for details.

The following is copied from the recent BigPond newsletter and explains a few things re Spam.

Noticed an increase in spam lately?
If you’ve noticed an increase in spam lately, you’re not imagining things.

Spammers are finding new techniques to sneak past filters and end up in your inbox. The latest techniques are more advanced than we’ve ever seen, but as always, we’re working with cutting-edge technology to help reduce the clutter in your mailbox.

Spam has doubled over the past year

In October 2005, it’s estimated that spammers sent 31 billion unsolicited bulk emails every day. In December 2006, it’s 61 billion – that’s over 700,000 every second.

While email is always gaining popularity, the growth in spam doesn’t match the growth in email generally. What’s more, as the world becomes cleverer at filtering spam, spammers become more creative in the techniques they use in an effort to fool spam filters. The most successful technique they’ve found recently is image-based spam.

Image spam is unsolicited email that relies on an image to communicate its message. It may include a graphic of the objects it’s trying to sell, or might simply be text saved as a graphic. It’s estimated that 40% of image spam is health-related (i.e. trying to sell a vitamin or health products) and about 20% recommends stocks or shares. According to BigPond security partner Sophos, at the beginning of 2006, image spam made up 18% of all spam. But now it’s estimated that it makes up to 40% of all spam.

Why image spam is so successful

The key to most image spam campaigns is that each email is unique – the images are changed for every email. Spammers set up ‘zombies’ on their PCs or those of unsuspecting users through Trojans or viruses, which include programs that alter the image slightly on each send. This may be by changing colours, or simply by adding a few small dots or lines in the image. Spam filters that are trained only to block known spam based on content will probably be fooled.

Image spam also rarely contains a URL, another common criterion for an image to be blocked by a spam filter. It may contain a URL or a link to a URL in an image, but because it’s not actually text, it may be allowed to pass through.

Banjo (WA)

Thank you for that Jack. Just magic. I knew it was happening but hadn't seen the details. I am not sure that getting $ from such scum isn't an offence in itself, even if donated to charity. I sometimes enjoy thanking telephone marketers for returning my (non existent) call and then insisting on trying to interest them in buying life insurance from me rather than talking about their product. the stores on the site you gave are priceless. This could be the start of a wonderful new hobby.