Scams and Spam Patrol Alerts Journal

Zappos website security website breach

2012-01-18T13:43:00.000-08:00

If you have a Zappos account you may want to change your password. It seems a wood be hacker has hacked the Zappos site With many passwords. More on the Zappos hack

If your car is submerged in water what do you do?

2012-01-11T15:30:00.000-08:00

If found a video that answers this very question on what would happen if your car is submerged in water do you know how to get out?

Preventing Garage Door Break ins.

2012-01-08T15:15:00.000-08:00

I found this video on how someone can easily break into a persons house with a wood wedge and a simple coat hanger and in a few seconds break into the garage door taking all your goodies.

The first video shows how someone can break into your home.

The second video shows some steps to prevent someone from breaking into your home.

Apple Ipad users targeted by Phisher scam artists

2011-12-26T16:35:00.000-08:00

Seems not even apple users are immune to virus programs which normally target windows users. As you know most people will be reciving or have recieved Ipads underneath the Christmas tree. An email going around targeting those user telling them to click a link to fix or update on their account.

View entire article.

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/12/26/christmas-day-phishing-scam-hopes-to-capitalize-on-new-apple-product-owners/

Christmas Holiday Scams

2011-12-19T20:39:00.000-08:00

As you know most of my articles have been centered around scams that happen online but as you know holiday shopping for this coming Sunday is getting close.

So here are a few tips as you would be shoppers handle the jungle of finding a parking but also dealing with rude people as you try to find that gift as if you were Indiana Jones looking for that lost relic.

1) If your car does not have tint now is the time to get it. As you know would be thieves will be looking at different cars to see what they can take. Especially car radios.

2) Don't leave your iPhone or cell phone for the matter charging while you are at an Italian restaurant. A few days ago a friend of mine who works at a restaurant told me that one of their customers had their window broken so that they could get to the phone.

More tips on the next blog post remember to revisit the Scam and Spam blog for update.

Like Jacking on Facebook Videos mostly

2011-12-07T19:59:00.001-08:00

A while back a friend of mine told me that she saw a video on her profile which one of her friends had placed on her facebook wall. The facebook wall is basically where one can post coments on whats going on with that person or a friend can place suggestions, comments, videos and so on.

But what was strange about the posting on my friends moms wall was that the video seemed out of characteristic from what her other friend normally post. It was a fake video which was linked to what is called a posion site. The video encourages a user to click the video which in turn infects the computer users computer.

So what does the like jacking have to do. Well what happens is that when you click the video it clicks a like on that video so people will assume you like that video so in return it encourages people to click the video to see what the fuss is all about.

So in essence by clicking the video your computer get infected so there is a possibility your profile could get compromised.

If something like this happens make sure to change your facebook password right away. Make sure your facebook and your email passwords are different from one another.

This will make it easier to fix your facebook. Run Malwarebyes since most antivirus programs may not find it.

Surf safe.

Android spam

2011-11-29T20:28:00.001-08:00

I recently got an invite on my phone a few months back and it was requesting to contact me. I didn't know what the message was so I declined it. I did further research and apparently it was a sex ad trying to get me to click a link or at least sending me a request to click a link to see some type of advertisement.

Make sure you have your gmail on off as far as your talk messager.

Yahoo Friend Request Scam on Messenger

2011-11-28T06:40:00.001-08:00

I was on my yahoo messager a few weeks back when I've been getting requests from people over messanger asking to add me as their friend.

So how the scam works. You will get a request from a bot who will send you a friend request on the in messager that Yahoo has built into their email system. When you click the add as friend it adds the bots email to your system. So what does this mean? No matter if you hit the spam button it will still go to your inbox folder because you have that bots email in your safe email folder.

So if your wondering why you keep getting the same message from a spam even after hitting spam block thats what is happening.

25 Worst Passwords of 2011

2011-11-23T08:38:00.001-08:00

You know one of the easiest way a hacker can gain access is using weak keywords. If you seen the movie hackers you know some of them already. God, Love and I can't remember the other one but yahoo had a list of some of the most common weak passwords used.

25 bad passwords not to use article.

Web Cramming or better known as free websites that bill you.

2011-11-06T22:33:00.000-08:00

This was an interesting one I found while surfing the next which is called web cramming. You may not know the term but I'm sure you have seen these online where you enter in your phone number to get to the website information.

The way the scam works is you enter in your information and you hit go. Your phone is sent a text and if you accept you get billed. The problem is getting off the billing system. Remember your phone can be billed so any site asking for your cell number beware.

What is Phishing?

2011-11-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

Phishing in general is a way for a hacker to pose using an electronic medium such an email, facebook message to pose as a real entity such as your local bank or your facebook account.

Normally these type of phishing attempts will ask you to click a link to login your account to change your password. You can spot a phishing email by hovering your mouse over the link and on the bottom right of your browser it will tell you where think link will take you. Chances are the site its pointing to is a dummy site which looks and feels like the account you are trying to access.

Prevention from phishing scams:
The easiest way to safe guard yourself from phishing scams is any email asking you to click a link to change or see something from the potential site, you will want to open a new browser window go to the url such as facebook.com if the message is coming from facebook. Login as normal and if you see the alert message then your safe.

Any bank will never ask for personal information by clicking a link. Phishing in general is really a way to see what people are easily fooled to click the link. Which is how they catch their phish. lol be safe and don't be a phish.

Check Scams and how they work

2011-11-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

I remember about a year ago a friend of mine showed me a check she had received in the mail. The check looked credible. Needless to say the check said it was in the amount for 600 dollars which said it was owed to her. After doing a search online we discovered it was a fake check. Easiest way to find out of a check is real or not is to do a search on the bank that the check is from to insure its a real account. Sometime scam artist will want to ask you for some of the money in which is a stolen account.

Fake Ipod knock offs beware this Christmas

2011-11-01T21:58:00.000-07:00

Interesting article on Ipads for those looking to get a deal. Be careful when your looking at auction sites since they may be selling you a knock off ipad. My best advice stick to the retail stores more pricier but at least you know your getting the real deal. Which reminds me I hate Ebay to much junk.

Found the article on yahoo which talks more in depth on knock off ipads.

Facebook Phishing and prevention

2011-10-16T18:56:00.000-07:00

It seems the facebook is no different from your email when you get what looks to be a trusted message from one of your friends only to find out it takes you to a site that has a built in program to infect your computer.

The classic one I saw not to long ago was one of one of my friends whos computer was compromised and for a while it was posting stuff like Look at this video of this woman showing her you know lol.

The problem is that if you think its coming from your friend and it does not sound like its something they normally post then I'm sure its a bad phishing posting.

Phishing if your not familiar with the term is a way a hacker trys to lure a computer user to click on a link or a graphic which then takes them to a site where it installs a program on the computer users browser. Usually a key logger which saves your password when you relog in and then post the same video over and over again.

Sometimes what it is used is to get traffic to a site or sometimes to collect personal information. So watch what you post on your profile if its too personal.

- Rules to follow if you feel like your account has been compromised.
- Change your password on facebook
- Make sure your email password and your facebook password are 2 different passwords. This will help reduce getting all your accounts compromised
- Make sure you have a good password. Alpha numeric, upper lower case letters helps
- Run a program called Malwarebytes (yes you have a virus program but most virus programs are not built to detect malware. Thats the ugly truth. - make sure you run this first before you change your passwords.

- if you have phishing postings on your wall make sure you take them off and tell people not to click anything that looks like this.

10 ways to prevent thieves from targeting your house

2011-09-25T10:06:00.001-07:00

Good article on how to prevent your house from becoming a target.

HTC Andriod antivirus software review.

2011-08-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

I have an HTC EVO but its a love hate relationship with my phone. I love what it can do but it sucks on the battery.

After testing a few antivirus programs that you can download onto your EVO I came to the conclusion that unless you have your phone plugged into your outlet, an antivirus software program will drain your battery life within an hour.

Good news is that the HTC platform has not experienced any viruses yet unless your downloading applications that have not been verified.

My best bet is only download aps that are from trusted companies.

Blogger discovers in China a Fake Apple Store

2011-07-20T22:11:00.000-07:00

China known for exporting many knock off items seems to have come in the lime light as to people who have gone as far as creating an Apple store to make sales in China.

Read more on this article

Apple Fake Store.

My friends facebook account was hacked? How to prevent it.

2011-06-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

A few days ago my friends facebook was compromised. He told me that someone was putting perverted messages on his facebook wall. So he told everyone he would be creating a new facebook account so he can get back in track. I told him he did not have to go through all that trouble. After asking a few questions it seems that this is the second time this has happened to him.

I told him that he does not have to create a new account. He can simply do a few things. One he can create a new email account just for his facebook. This way if the would be hacker knows his email address that is linked to his account he will not be able to relog back into the page. Or create a good password for both his facebook and his email account. Meaning your password must consist of upper and lowercase letters possibly symbols ect.

In the next post I will post other things to do to secure your facebook page and your computer.

Donald Lapre busted for scams

2011-06-16T14:54:00.000-07:00

If your the late night owl then I'm sure you have seen some of Donald Lapre's infomercials on how to make money online and get rich. Lapre is known as the pitch man but mostly known as the kind of infomercials. I remember many years ago he had a package of videos and books that he promised if you placed these advertisements in the newspaper you would make 10's of thousands of dollars. At the time my friend bought the books and audio books only to find it a big dissspointment. You guessed it. It was the donkey and the carrot stick trick. Once you got the package it asked you to buy more services.

The thing I hate about these turn key work from home is they aren't really turn key. By the time you see any money you have already spent 1000 dollars if not more.

I'm glad he got caught.
Anyway the link is on top if you want to read more about Lapre getting charged.

Phishing at your local college or airport

2011-05-31T12:51:00.000-07:00

I recently saw a video that was very disturbing about how a hacker was able to use a portable router that fits snug in a coffee cup and allows the hacker to do his bidding. Now the hacker who demonstrated it did not do anything malicious but it drew up some concerns to to what would happen if it was a would be hacker out to get peoples passwords and information

The way the router would work is it would sniff out people who have their computer that is set to pick up any open network. The portable router would then work as a middle man and would send the intended signal to the respective router.

So to do his or her phishing he creates fake landing pages and look something like this:

http://www.facebook.com/index.html

If you land on a page while connected remotely outside your network your in the process of being phished.

Stay safe and get a good firewall and unset your router to not connect automatically.

Your Social Security can review more then you think to theives.

2011-01-07T21:02:00.001-08:00

Mocospace and virus problems in its chatroom and my solution

2010-11-27T23:42:00.000-08:00

Seems that Mocospace has a virus that lurks in the chatroom from what I have been reading. Its a nasty virus that not only disables your norton or your mcfee virus protection it will not let you do a system restore unless you know how to get around it.

Ok if your a windows 7 user you will need to login to your user account but you must act quickly before the virus program runs. Click the windows icon at the bottom and type in msconfig

This will take you to the start up boot menu. Click the start tab and disable all. You will then be able to go to your systems tools by going to systems tools and go to restore to previous location. Once you did that you will want to download Malywarebytes which they offer a free tool to download. Run the program to clean the residue left behind by the virus.

Next you will want to run your Norton Antivius or any other antivirus program to make sure it picked up anything that was left behind.

Let me know if this helps or if you have a different solution to your antivirus problem.

Post your comments or suggestions

ATM Fraud Gets Even More Brazen

2010-11-27T23:24:00.000-08:00

Teenage Hacking Tips and prevention

2010-11-21T18:57:00.001-08:00

SCAM ALERT FROM STCU: Don't Get 'Vished'

2010-11-13T18:17:00.001-08:00