OT-Fw: [taipanlist] MAJOR scam alert

Another to watch for, this one looks real!
Roger , Colfax  WA
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "S. Ellis" <sellis@dslextreme.com>
To: "Taipanlist" <taipanlist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2004 6:33 AM
Subject: [taipanlist] MAJOR scam alert


> E-mail scam taps antiterrorist push, says FDIC
> http://news.com.com/2100-7349-5146716.html?part=dht&tag=ntop
>
> The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the national insurer of U.S. bank
> accounts, warned Americans on Friday that a convincing e-mail scam is
making
> the rounds.
>
> The fraudulent e-mail claims to be from the FDIC and informs recipients
that
> their bank account has been denied insurance as a result of an
investigation
> by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security into "suspected violations of
> the Patriot Act." The USA PATRIOT Act, which was passed after the Sept. 11
> attacks, gives broad powers to law enforcement to combat terrorism.
>
> "Someone really did their homework," said David Barr, a spokesman for the
> FDIC, adding that the letter is mostly free of the grammatical and
spelling
> mistakes that usually act as a sign that the message is not genuine.
> Moreover, citations of the little-understood antiterrorism law, whose
> acronym stands for "Uniting and Strengthening of America by Providing
> Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism," lend the
> message a dire tone.
>
> "The Patriot Act is an actual act out there. It's done through Homeland
> Security, and it's used to block the flow of money," making the fraudulent
> e-mail seem at least plausible, Barr said.
>
> The FDIC sent out the advisory after being inundated with complaints from
> consumers, who were worried that their bank accounts wouldn't have the
> $100,000 protection historically guaranteed by the FDIC.
>
> The scheme is only the latest attempt to get personal and financial
> information through fraud, a criminal activity known as "phishing."
Similar
> messages have targeted customers of Citibank, Wells Fargo, PayPal and
other
> financial companies, but haven't cited the USA PATRIOT Act.
>
> The latest letter states that unless recipients confirm their personal
> information by going to what looks like an FDIC Web site, then their
account
> will lose its protection. The link to the Web site provided in the e-mail
> message leads to a server in Karachi, Pakistan, CNET News.com has
> discovered. Moreover, the link is formatted to take advantage of an
Internet
> Explorer flaw that allows an attacker to hide the true destination of the
> link; in this case, the address bar in Internet Explorer displays
> "www.fdic.gov," while the actual Web site is at a different address in
> Pakistan.
>
> The IE issue is more than a month old and has yet to be fixed by
Microsoft.
>
> "Microsoft is taking this vulnerability very seriously and is working to
> develop a patch to fix the problem," a company spokesperson said. "We will
> release this patch as soon as the development and testing process is
> complete."
>
> Microsoft is directing users to a Knowledge Base article for more
> information.
>
>
> "The FDIC is attempting to identify the source of the e-mails and disrupt
> the transmission," the agency's advisory stated. "Until this is achieved,
> consumers are asked to report any similar attempts to obtain this
> information to the FDIC by sending information to alert@fdic.gov."
>
>
>
>
>
>
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