CertiGuide to Security+  9  Chapter 1:  General Security Concepts (Domain 1.0; 30%)       9  1.4  Attacks

1.4.8  Mathematical 1 2 3 1.4.10  Birthday

2004 Update

What has become a new twist on social engineering is several type of scams that don’t rely on the old tried and true greed moviation such as the Nigerian Scams⁸⁴. I have seen a totally new trend of email designed to either get me to be scared that I have been ‘caught’ with claims that my credit card will be charged at the rate of $2x.yz USD a week for child pornography unless I click on a link to “verify” accounting information. Obviously this is scam based on fear.

The other tacic is designed on coursity or anger. Short emails that are intended to inflame the reader. The virus based ones are always short emails, probably because the small size of the code is limited to how much random data it can create.

The professional scam artists are hitting businesses with emails like this:

Subject: Charge to VISA CARD

Hello,

Before I call VISA and make them aware of  this Apparent FRAUDULENT charge, what in the hell has been billed to this card !!

VISA CARD (last 4 digits)  ....8231
STATEMENT / Transaction DETAILS:
February 12th 2004
1085.15 CAN
(801.00 US)

This is the reference # on the statement:

248-423-xxxx-xx (modified by Tcat)

I want Complete details PLEASE !!!!
-What EXACTLY was ordered......
-Was this an online or verbal purchase?
-If it was online, I want complete details...ie: IP ADDRESSING, names, numbers etc.....
-If it was verbal, I want detailed information from the person who took the call, etc.....

Signed,

Madder than hell.....!!!!

Notice the attempt to get personal data from a business such as IP address, phone numbers, etc…

Hopfuly you can see why employee education is paramount. While currently the best defense is to encourage telephone dialog where your company calls the “victim” (the fraud folks are not prepared for this yet) I wouldn’t count on this working forever as Kevin revealed in “The Art of Deception”. Vilange and training is your only defense.

1.4.8  Mathematical 1 2 3 1.4.10  Birthday