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Beware of Email Scams on the Internet

December 17, 2008 · Filed Under Internet Security 

I was really astonished to know that email scams on the internet constitute 90% of the total emails sent daily, Cisco reported. Agence France-Presse also indicated that “armies of hijacked computers are flooding the world with spam as hackers devise slicker ways to take over unwitting people’s machines”. This report was based on Cisco’s findings.

Beware of email scams, that’s the only advice I can give you. Don’t open emails coming from unknown sources especially those claiming that you’ve won a large sum of money.

Formally, the report goes like this

Virus-infected computers are woven into “botnets” used to attack more machines and to send specious sales pitches to email addresses in low-cost quests to bilk readers out of cash.

“Every year we see threats evolve as criminals discover new ways to exploit people, networks and the Internet,” said Cisco chief security researcher Patrick Peterson.

Junk email referred to as spam accounts for nearly 200 billion messages daily, approximately 90 percent of email worldwide, according to a Cisco Annual Security Report.

The United States is the biggest source of spam, accounting for 17.2 percent of the messages. Turkey and Russia ranked second and third, accounting for 9.2 percent and 8 percent of spam respectively, according to Cisco.

This year, botnets were used to inject an array of legitimate Websites with an IFrames malicious code that reroutes visitors to websites that download computer viruses into their machines, according to Cisco.

“The botnet is, in many cases, ground-zero for online criminal threats,” Peterson said.

“Using malware to infect someone’s computers is an incredibly common mechanism and harnessing them all together is a way they do their click fraud, spam emails, and data stealing.”

As computer security vendors such as Cisco get better at protecting machines from hackers and users grow wary of clicking on unsolicited Web links or email attachments, online criminals are turning botnets on Web-based email accounts.

Hackers are “reputation hijacking” by using botnets to figure out weak passwords protecting Web-based email accounts, according to Peterson.

Weak passwords consist of family names, birthdays, home addresses, or other terms considered relatively easy to deduce.

Once access is gained to legitimate email accounts, a plethora of spam messages sent are sent in the owners’ names.

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Comments

6 Comments/Reviews on “Beware of Email Scams on the Internet”

  1. billy on December 18th, 2008 1:10 pm

    Marami na talagang naglipanang spam sa email… Kya ako delete ko agad yan..lalo na pag ang nakalagay..”You win 1,000,000UK”.

    Etchos! Pano ako nanalo ng money? Charing!

    billy’s last blog post..spin it!

    [Reply]

    jessie Reply:
    December 21st, 2008 at 5:46 am

    Billy,

    Ganyan talaga ang drama nila. Kunwari millionaire ka na. :-) Scammers will really entice you to click on their links.

    jessie’s last blog post..Widgetbucks Sucks So Do NOT Use It

    [Reply]

  2. ivy on December 20th, 2008 3:28 pm

    Hello fren kumusta na? hmmp ngayon lang uli ako naka balik dito…anyway tapos na ako mg post about ur contest…here’s the link http://mjsterling.com/2008/12/free-web-hosting-blog-contest.html

    ivy’s last blog post..A Free Web Hosting Blog Contest

    [Reply]

    jessie Reply:
    December 21st, 2008 at 5:48 am

    Ivy,

    Ok na fren. I’ve checked your post and it’s good. Counted na sya. I suggest you start your campaign fren. Maraming humahabol eh. Good luck amiga!

    jessie’s last blog post..Nursing Theory: Applications in the Real World

    [Reply]

  3. Marlene on December 21st, 2008 9:17 pm

    Oo nga. Kada-download ko lang rin ng Spamfighter for Outlook Express and ni-disable ko rin ang preview para di ko mabuksan ang mga spam mails. Try ko lang kung ok nga ang program na to.

    Marlene’s last blog post..Santa’s On His Way

    [Reply]

    jessie Reply:
    December 22nd, 2008 at 1:37 pm

    Mhy,

    Try ko nga rin yang Spamfighter kasi sa Outlook talagang pumapasok yung mga spams eh. Buti nga sa Yahoo at Gmail eh medyo kontrolado.

    [Reply]

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