Be warned, there's some nasties out there !

Discussion in 'The Lounge Bar' started by Ron Goldstein, Feb 27, 2009.

  1. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Mike

    my anti virus bitdefender picked up the same type of email and blocked them
     
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2019
  2. SteveDee

    SteveDee Well-Known Member

    Naturally it is the most popular desktop & phone operating systems which attract the most interest from those criminally minded people that 'want a piece of you'.

    Although we keep being told not to open emails from unknown sources, we sometimes make mental connections and think it may be genuine. On Windows systems, I saw a lot of emails with MS office attachments containing malicious code. When still working in a part time IT support role, I brought one of these examples home, opened it on my Linux system, and worked out what it was doing. From the malicious code inside the attached Word or Excel document, it basically ran a simple script and created a second program on the computers hard drive, which then set up a pipe to send the users email contacts to a remote server. The new owner of your address book would then send dodgy emails to all your contacts. This was quite common 5 years ago, so may be more sophisticated by now.

    If you simply MUST open unrecognised emails, please select Plain Text Mode first, and don't open any attachments.

    One of the other common traps is when you open a website, while allowing scripts to run. A script may then simply cause your browser to launch a fake page each time it starts; this happened on my wife's phone a year or so ago, and the fake screen wanted to 'fix a virus' ...all she had to do was click on the OK button, which would have been a very, very bad idea.

    For most people, using Firefox with the NoScript plugin running is a pain in the neck. But if you really want to stay safe, its still one of the best ways to do it.

    Me? ...well all my laptops run Linux, so my risk of contracting an operating system boggy-man is extremely small. I also run NoScript on Firefox and don't even allow any Facebook scripts to run (I have Facebook contained inside a Single Site Browser, so it can't see what I view on my regular browser). But really, life shouldn't be this complicated.
     
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  3. Blutto

    Blutto Banned

    Still the biggest IT security risk is the human at the keyboard. Not long ago a girl in the office decided that it would be OK to open the attachment that her boyfriend sent her, because he was suspicious of it! This was barely 24 hours after I handed out written instructions about how to deal with such emails and attachments. Had she not been the owner's daughter she would have been out of the door 'toutes suite'.
     
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  4. SteveDee

    SteveDee Well-Known Member

    This is what we use to [rather unkindly] refer to by saying 'the problem is the loose nut attached to the keyboard'.

    You could even say this to the person concerned, as long as you pretended to tighten something on the back of the keyboard.
     
    CL1 likes this.
  5. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Conned out of £400,000, then 'failed' by police

    "Conned out of my life savings, then 'failed' by police"

    With: "You can hear more about Cynthia and Rachel's story on "Anatomy of a Fraud" on Radio 4 at 8pm, Tuesday 12 November."

    [​IMG]

    "Cynthia Tuck was married to her husband George for 39 years"

    [​IMG]

    George Tuck was left for dead during the battle of Monte Cassino in World War Two, but recovered to have a successful career as a civil engineer
     
  6. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

  7. amberdog45

    amberdog45 Senior Member

  8. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Had an e mail yesterday purporting to be from the Tax Office asking me to fill in a form on line so they could put my tax rebate in the bank! Very official looking. However the Revenue never work like this. Never even opened it just junked it from the previewer but there's many who would be taken in.
     
  9. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    I've now had another very official looking e-mail about a tax rebate - funny it's a different sum! plus another offering the self employed grant. They do say that plagues encourage vermin.
     
  10. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    During the last few weeks my phone has been bombarded with someone purporting to be from AMAZON and telling me to "Press 1" to discuss a matter.

    DONT !

    This is yet another nasty scam

    Ron
     
  11. Tony56

    Tony56 Member Patron

    You are right Ron, a lot of nasty people out there who will take advantage of any situation, including Coronavirus and Test & Trace. I have am involved with the local Neighbourhood Watch and have attached a couple of documents that may be of interest to some.

    One of the big dangers is clicking links in emails and other documents, sometimes by accident. PDFs are a universal way of sending documents (like my attachments!) - did you know that you can set your Adobe reader to 'Protected View'?

    To quote their website "For additional security and to avoid potential security risks associated with files that may have originated from unsafe locations, use the Protected View mode. In the Protected View mode, most features are disabled. You can view the PDF, but not do much else."

    To get instructions, open your Adobe Acrobat Reader, Choose Help > Acrobat Reader Help and enter Protected View in the search box.
     

    Attached Files:

  12. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    TV licensing phishing currently abounds.
    Correctly spelt illustrated emails.
    Check the 'from' header, or best bet - just bin regardless.
     
    gash hand likes this.
  13. Trux

    Trux 21 AG

    Her indoors got an email saying that her monthly direct debit payment for TV licence had not been received etc. It looked perfectly genuine except that she has never had a licence in her name, we have never paid monthly and have free over 75 licence. The from header was indeed a giveaway.

    Mike
     
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  14. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    My daughter in law recently got one of these e mail TV licensing "reminders".An obvious scam as the TV licence is in my son's name and it had not expired.

    A check on the sender's e mail address revealed it was from Belgium
     
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  15. Tony56

    Tony56 Member Patron

    From Neighbourhood Watch:
    "Elderly and vulnerable people across Sussex are again being warned to be wary of phone calls from fraudsters pretending to be from HM Customs and Revenue (HMRC). The bogus callers claim the targeted person is wanted for tax evasion and is arrestable on warrant unless they pay a cash sum - sometimes up to £4,000 - to clear their 'debt'.

    Some even address victims by name, or use a number that is often displayed as the official number of the agency they claim to represent, to add credibility to their call. Police received reports of 18 such calls in Sussex during June, although thankfully only two succeeded in getting any money - a total of £4300.

    And at the beginning of July three calls were received in the Bognor area, one of them on 2 July netting £900 by phone-arranged bank transfer. The other two were unsuccessful. Of the 18 people who reported calls in June, 10 live alone and seven are aged over 75. Calls were received across East and West Sussex as well as Brighton & Hove.

    Genuine authorities stress that people will never be texted or telephoned by them out of the blue with requests to make payments, to log in to an online account or to disclose personal information, such as PIN numbers, passwords or bank details.

    Anyone receiving such contact is advised to hang up and report the call - preferably using a separate mobile phone or landline in case the criminals have kept the line open - to police on 101 or Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040.
     
  16. Grasmere

    Grasmere Well-Known Member

    Totally agree with the warnings posted here. I had a similar experience about 3 times. I had voicemails claiming to be from HMRC telling me to press 1 or whatever it was to speak to my case officer as if I was already in trouble with them. When I received the first message, I had recently made a call to the HMRC regarding my own tax affairs so they must have been aware of that somehow. They ended each message with "Have a blessed day", so they were obviously from abroad and not genuinely from HMRC. This was about 2 or 3 years ago now, so this kind of scam call has clearly been going on for quite a while. There was no mention of money or payments, but needless to say, I did not follow the calls up! Please be wary at all times.
     
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  17. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    "They ended each message with "Have a blessed day" "

    A phrase I used to encounter in Nigeria - home of the "Yahoo boys" (local slang for web based scammers)
     
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  18. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    'Netflix' one.
    It is, of course, bollocks.
    Still getting better though. Spelling etc.

    Keep checking those 'from' headers, & if the email is received on an address that has nothing to do with the account cited - I also bleedin' doubt Netflix attaches logos as a .PNG called 'logo' with an attached large .pdf...

    Screenshot_20200721-153829.png


    Keep 'em peeled. No shortage of abject tossers still out there.
     
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  19. 4jonboy

    4jonboy Daughter of a 56 Recce

    Nearly there on spelling-never heard of RESOND though;).
    Yep, tossers.
     
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  20. Mr Jinks

    Mr Jinks Bit of a Cad

    Here`s a strange one, I usually access the internet via the laptop it runs Win 7 no problems at all . I have a PC in another room on Win 10 which is seldom used but I store a lot of files and photos there because its a bigger storage capacity.

    Today I used the PC to access some files and noticed the folder icons were a different size to what I had set them too ? I also noticed the microphone was active yet I had disabled it ? Something was running in the corner of the screen a small message said recording XBOX game footage ? I do not have an Xbox neither did I set the permissions ? Cortana then spoke ! Again this was disabled ! A GMail notification was displayed with 1 message pending ? This I knew wasnt possible either because I was only signed in on the laptop and not the PC my inbox on the laptop was showing no new emails? None of the files would open on double click either ?
    I went to the three dots in the right hand corner and clicked the customize options to access my Google settings to my horror at the bottom it read " Google Chrome Is Managed By Your Organization " !!!!!!!!!
    Clicking on Google settings at the top again the heading " Google Chrome Is Managed By Your Organization " Just to be clear I do not have any `Organization` ,no work or college access yet here it was!
    I ran Malwarebytes (eventually got it to work) and it picked up 5 potential threats and quarantined them . Restarted the machine...No Change. Rolled back Google Chrome ..restarted..No Change.
    Accessed the internet via the laptop and found this type of thing had been happening to thousands of people some not even aware of it for some time ! How to get rid of it ? Tried loads of the suggested `fixes` even `Google Chrome ` itself offered advice but nothing worked.

    It appears that some security systems as part of their protocol are altering settings to provide a secure enviroment much the same as `Organisation`s` who blanket control their machines to ensure security ? Unfortunately `hackers` can also `mirror` this . I have (eventually) rid my machine of this but to do so I have had to check the `Reg Edit` and look for `odd or new files` and remove them. Not all people are comfortable doing this so I found this which talks through the issue . Well worth checking just incase .
    `Your Browser Is Managed By Your Organization Fixes For PC and Mac OS in Google Chrome`



    Kyle

     
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