Potential WikiLeaks Phishing Scams

In the past, US-CERT has received reports of phishing scams and malware campaigns related to topics that are of high-interest to the U.S. Government or news media, such as the WikiLeaks website. Users' systems have been compromised by receiving and accessing phishing emails with subject lines tha...

FBI Warns of Rising Smishing and Vishing Scams This Holiday Season

Social networking sites and search engines are expected to face increased cybercriminal activity this holiday season. However, the FBI is also warning consumers about two other significant threats: “smishing” and “vishing” scams. Both smishing and vishing are forms of phishing. Smishing involves...

Holiday Season Phishing Scams and Malware Campaigns

As the winter holidays are quickly approaching, US-CERT is republishing this entry to increase awareness. In the past, US-CERT has received reports of an increased number of phishing scams and malware campaigns that take advantage of the winter holiday and holiday shopping season. US-CERT reminds...

Real SEO Feeding Traffic to Fake Search Engines

Online scam artists are using black hat search engine optimization SEO techniques to push more than just malicious software. In fact, SEO is increasingly being used to drive traffic to a range of phony Web based search engines that are feeding cost-per-click advertising scams, according to a blog...

A Closer Look at Work at Home Scams

A recent chat with an individual who was almost tricked into helping organized criminals launder thousands of dollars stolen through e-banking fraud displayed one of the more clever and convincing money mule recruitment Web sites encountered. Read the full article. KrebsonSecurity...

New Survey Scams In Apple's iTunes Social Network

Spammers have been quick off the mark in exploiting Apple’s new iTunes social network to punt survey scams. Read the full article. The Register...

Survey Scam Offers False Shelter From Surveys

Scammers are offering prospective marks an application that supposedly shields them from exposure to survey scams. Naturally, you first have to fill in a survey to install the script, which is punted through Userscriptsdotorg. Read the full article. The Register...

Catholic Diocese Loses $600K to Online Thieves

Organized cyber thieves stole more than $600,000 from the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa earlier this month with the help of dozens of unwitting co-conspirators hired through work-at-home job scams, at least one of whom was told the money was being distributed to victims of the Catholic...

Anti-Phishing Group Targeting Fax-Based Scams

The heyday of faxing may have passed twenty years ago, but scam artists haven’t given up on the old technology, especially when it comes to wheedling personally identifiable information out of unsuspecting office workers. Now a leading anti-phishing group is tackling the problem of fax based...

APWG Fax Back Phishing Education Program

In an effort to respond to a growing public threat by offline phishers that conduct various scams via fax, the Anti-phishing Working Group APWG has partnered with the Internal Revenue Service IRS to create the APWG Fax Back Phishing Education Program. This program is designed to provide...

Credit Unions Targets of Smishing Attacks

A new report found that credit unions continue to be a favorite target of smishing attacks, and that text-to-phone scams used a toll-free number in about half of the lures sent in the first quarter of 2010. Read the full article. KrebsonSecurity...

Facebook 'Like-jacking' Scams Expand

Facebook attacks that force users to unwittingly endorse scam pages keep spreading, researchers say. Attacks have now circulated that cause users to recommend pages promising naked pictures of alternative rock diva Hayley Williams or the phone number of heart-throb singer Justin Bieber. Read the...

Facebook: The Money Mule Farm

Scammers and phishers are continuing to adapt their recruitment tactics, now going so far as to create special Facebook groups for their work-at-home scams. Phishers have been using social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter for years now as fertile hunting grounds not only for new...

The Importance of Patching Human Vulnerabilities

Today’s threat landscape is very complex. Cybercriminals use a wide range of threats to hijack people’s computers and to make money illegally. These threats include Trojans of many different kinds, worms, viruses and exploit code which is designed to enable malware to make use of vulnerabilities ...

Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Email Scam

US-CERT is aware of public reports of an active email scam. These emails, which appear to come from seemingly legitimate law firms, indicate that someone has filed a copyright lawsuit against the message recipient. The messages may contain malicious attachments or web links. If a user opens the...

US Tax Season Phishing Scams and Malware Campaigns

In the past, US-CERT has received reports of an increased number of phishing scams and malware campaigns that take advantage of the United States tax season. Due to the upcoming tax deadline, US-CERT reminds users to remain cautious when receiving unsolicited email that could be part of a potenti...

Zeus Trojan Campaign Warning

US-CERT is aware of public reports of malicious code circulating via spam email messages impersonating the Department of Homeland Security DHS. The attacks arrive via unsolicited email messages that may contain subject lines related to DHS or other government activity. These messages may contain ...

U.S. Census Bureau 2010 Census Campaign Warning

US-CERT asks users to be vigilant during the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 Census campaign and to watch for potential census scams. According to the U.S. Census 2010 website, they began delivery of the printed census forms to every resident in the United States on March 1, 2010. The only way to...

Facebook scams

Beware of scams on Facebook. Two common ones are: 1 One of your friends all of a sudden sends you a message that he needs emergency money because he got robbed or something in a far away land. You are then engaged in a conversation to wire him some money. This is what happens when your friend has...

The Unemployed Are Key to Online Job Scams

Even though online job scams have become more convincing as criminals have honed their skills, sometimes victims don’t fall for them – they jump into them. Read the full article. SFGate...