Issue 8 - Hoax-Slayer Newsletter

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This week in Hoax-Slayer:

• U.S.Bank Phishing Scam
• SMS Hoax
• Security Tip: Read the EULA
• Old Virus Hoax: Life is Beautiful
• Testing your Email Security
• Humorous Hoax: Drivers Licence on the Internet

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The U.S. Bank is currently the target of another phishing expedition.

This is a comparatively unsophisticated phishing scam that tries to scare gullible U.S. Bank customers into providing personal information via a bogus website. One of the fraudulent emails (reproduced below) "informs" the potential victim that his or her account may have been compromised and that the account will be frozen until account details are provided. Like other phishing scams, the intent of the email is to trick people into providing identity and banking information directly to the criminals responsible for the scam. The emails are randomly sent to thousands of email addresses. The scammers rely on the statistical probability that some of the recipients will be U.S. Bank customers and that at least a few of them will be naive enough to take the bait.

According to information on the bank website, "U.S. Bank will never initiate a request for sensitive information from you via email". In fact, it would be highly unlikely for any legitimate financial institution to request sensitive information via email, and such a request should always be viewed as suspect.

Although the bogus website has now been shutdown, it is probable that the scammers responsible are already preparing for their next sting.







Australian telecommunications giant, Telstra, has warned customers that a text message that promises free SMS is nothing more than a hoax. The text messages tells recipients that they will receive free SMS for a month in exchange for passing on the message to eight people.

Last year, a similar hoax clogged a Vietnamese mobile phone network when thousands of subscribers forwarded text messages in the hope of receiving 90 Vietnamese dong.

These SMS hoaxes closely resemble a number of email hoaxes including the Nokia Giveaway Hoax, which asked people to forward the email to 8 people to get a new Nokia phone.






If you download a lot of software, it can be tempting to just skip over the End User License Agreement without actually reading it. This is not a good habit to get into. Some programs have some pretty dubious conditions of use hidden in the legalese of their EULA's. For example, by digitally signing the EULA, you may have given the application developers explicit permission to collect information such as surfing habits and transmit it back to their servers. In other words, you may inadvertently give permission for intrusive, and sometimes unstable, adware to be installed on your computer. If this intention to collect information from end users is not mentioned in the EULA, then the program can be thought of as containing spyware, although the end result is the same. Furthermore, anti-spyware scanners such as Ad-Aware will not always flag information-gathering components if their existence has been noted in a EULA.

Of course, in some cases, you may be quite willing to allow software components to collect information from your computer in exchange for using a program for free. However, it is important that you know about the components before you install the software, hence a thorough reading of the EULA is worth the effort.






The "Life is Beautiful" hoax is one of those hoaxes that just never die.

Amazingly, the "Life is Beautiful" hoax is still very much active "in the wild". I'm quite surprised at the tenacity of this hoax. In spite of the fact that it has been thoroughly debunked on many different websites, email discussion groups and news groups for well over a year, it continues to circulate.

There are a number of versions of the hoax, some of which are in Portuguese. French, Italian and German.

There is not, nor has there ever been, a virus like the one described in the hoax email.

For more details about this old hoax, refer to:
Life is Beautiful Virus Hoax







In an earlier article I wrote about ways to test your online security.

It's also a good idea to test the security of your email client. The GFI Email Security Testing Zone is place where you can do just that. Enter your email address and the service will perform a vulnerability check on your email system. A series of emails will be sent to you that are designed to test the security of your system and inform you about any potential problems.

When you enter your email address to perform the tests, you will first receive an email that asks for confirmation. Once you confirm your request, a series of test emails will be sent. Each email will outline the results of the test. Naturally, none of the test emails contain any harmful code or viruses. The emails are designed to fool your security software into detecting a potential threat.

Although the company offering the tests is in the business of selling security software, I believe all the tests are legitimate and above board. When requesting the test, you are given the option of subscribing to the GIF Newsletter, but I have never received unsolicited email from the company.

During the test, your anti-virus software may warn you that you have a virus. Don't be alarmed by this as it is part of the test. The "virus" is the eicar Anti-Virus test file and it will not harm your system in any way.

Read more about the service and request the tests.




The website to which the email below refers is actually rather clever.

However, I've seen the email around often enough to suspect that people are forwarding it onward without bothering to go to the site and check it out. That is, I'm inclined to think that some people are taking the email at face value and actually believe the information it contains to be true. These days there are a plethora of real threats to our privacy so obscuring the truth by perpetrating false invasion of privacy stories is less than desirable.

Having said that, taken in context, the site represents an enjoyable prank. If you have a minute, you might like to visit the site mentioned and enter some false data to see what it comes up with.

But think twice about sending it on to friends unless you make it clear that it's just a joke.