[SixOfEleven]

I thought fellow DIC heads might find this an interesting read. I was wondering if similar things have happened to you in the past or you have heard of people falling for things like this in the past.

I was checking my email, before shutting down for the night, as I usually do. I got an email titled as follows, with an attachment.

Quote

From: Facebook Assistance
Subject: [Bulk] Facebook Password Reset Confirmation! Support Message.

I must have been a cat in a past life or something because I curiousity got the better of me and decided to see what the message said. Wouldn't even consider opening the attachment being 99.9999% repeating sure it contains some form of malware.

Well, this is what the message read.

Quote

Dear user of facebook,

Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed.
You can find your new password in attached document.

Thanks,
Your Facebook.

Then, upon closer examination of said email, noticed in the To: field for the message, it wasn't even addressed to my email as is always the case with [ BULK] email. But the person it was addressed to had a similar address. Instead of simplyjamie@whatever.com it was addressed simplygary@whatever.com.

Do people really fall for these things? I'm sure they do or people these sorts of things wouldn't even be sent out.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened. I've gotten emails supposedly from UPS about failed deleveries, with attachments, that I would get two or three times a week for several weeks and eventually my ISP started reporting them containing some form of virus that was removed at the server.

Have any of you gotten things like this before?? Have you heard what things like this have done to people's computers in the past?

I'm half tempted to build up a test computer to see what the attachment would do to it.

Probably goes with PT Barnum's "There's a sucker born every minute." Especially in the day and age where probably at least 90% of computer owner's shouldn't even have one.

[coden4fun]

Consider yourself lucky. I don't take those quiz's or click on fb advertisement of any kind, nor do I put or send my cell phone as registration (unless I know it's a safe development partnership like Microsoft). And I got billed for $40 as supposedly signed up for Men Health Magazine subscription by taking an IQ quiz as a preliminary offer. I was pissed! I called them and made sure they new how pissed I was.

When it comes to emails I can usually instantly tell if it's spam or not and either block and delete it immediately, or continue with the email.

I guess people do fall for these emails, or there wouldn't be a business out for it, which is sad. I would hate to be a developer making these. It's immoral, but then again there are many stupid people out there.

This post has been edited by coden4fun: 16 February 2010 - 09:08 PM

[macosxnerd101]

I'd have to say the most interesting piece of spam I've ever gotten was from Oliver North, stating that he needed my help by giving me 1 Million British Pounds (~2 Million USD), to just send my account number for wiring. Suffice to say I deleted it, though I should've saved it for my great-aunt and great-uncle, who voted for the guy when he ran for public office, just b/c they voted along Republican party lines.

[no2pencil]

I get a lot of DHL, UPS, & supposed tax documents that are zip files that contain executable. Scare factor is certainly a huge contribution to spreading viruses like these.

[LeisureProgrammer]

Quote

I'm half tempted to build up a test computer to see what the attachment would do to it.

Haha, I have a Windows XP VM dedicated to opening attachments from suspicous sources, and I also use it to see what suspicous links link to.

This post has been edited by LeisureProgrammer: 17 February 2010 - 07:15 AM

[calvinthedestroyer]

coden4fun, on 16 February 2010 - 08:06 PM, said:

Consider yourself lucky. I don't take those quiz's or click on fb advertisement of any kind, nor do I put or send my cell phone as registration (unless I know it's a safe development partnership like Microsoft). And I got billed for $40 as supposedly signed up for Men Health Magazine subscription by taking an IQ quiz as a preliminary offer. I was pissed! I called them and made sure they new how pissed I was.

When it comes to emails I can usually instantly tell if it's spam or not and either block and delete it immediately, or continue with the email.

I guess people do fall for these emails, or there wouldn't be a business out for it, which is sad. I would hate to be a developer making these. It's immoral, but then again there are many stupid people out there.

I fill out those quizs all the time, heres how I fill them out:

name: Donald Duck
email: bgates@microsoft.com
address:
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500
Phone (911)911-1231

I do have a program called HOST stopper, that blocks bad web sights. I get bad emails like the one LeisureProgrammer mentioned but the host stopper program blocks the images in those emails so I can Immediately tell that they are fakes.

[SixOfEleven]

Well, I just got another one of these emails. Found out what it does courtesy of Norton Internet Security. It was an email scanner. You think you are reseting your Facebook password but you are giving somebody access to email.

[Sethro117]

I think I've been jipped . I subscribed to Taste of Home a month ago and havent got anything yet.