McElroy Translation System Administrator/
Programmer shares with us that SPAM now accounts for 83% of all email traffic! Ouch.
E-mail Providers: Unplug Spam-Sending PCs
Tuesday, June 22, 2004 Copyright Reuters
Consumers who allow their infected computers to send out millions of “spam” messages could be unplugged by the Internet under a proposal released Tuesday by six large e-mail providers. Internet users also could be limited on the amount of e-mail they send out each day to ensure they haven’t become unwitting spammers, under voluntary guidelines proposed to curb unwanted junk e-mail. The proposal was developed by Time Warner Inc.’s America Online, Yahoo Inc., EarthLink Inc., Microsoft Corp., Comcast Corp. and BT Group Plc.
Spam now accounts for up to 83 percent of all e-mail traffic, and large Internet providers say the problem costs them billions of dollars each year in wasted bandwidth, legal bills and additional customer service. Most of the recommendations issued by the group seek to plug holes used by spammers to cover their tracks. Internet companies should make sure that their equipment has been properly secured so spammers can’t route their messages through them, the group said. Security holes in Web-based e-mail forms and redirection services used to monitor online advertising should be plugged, the group said. But the group also suggested consumers be held accountable if their machines are exploited by spammers.
A spate of viruses and worms over the past year have allowed spammers to route their traffic through personal computers, allowing come-ons for low mortgage rates and herbal Viagra to appear as if they’re coming from a trusted friend. Internet providers should take those machines offline until they can be cleaned up, the group said. Providers should also limit the number of messages an individual machine can send to 100 per hour or 500 per day to prevent spammers from routing millions o messages through customers machines, the group said.
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Do You Know about Phishing?
Phishing is where someone will send you an email that looks legitimate, but is actually a scam to get your credit card info. For example: an email that looks just like it came from eBay that says you need to update your personal info. It has a link to a web page that looks just like the real eBay website, with a form to enter all of your personal info. When you have submitted it, it then links you to the real eBay site, completing the illusion. It is super sneaky. The moral of the story is to never follow a link that is embedded in an email from eBay or PayPal or your bank or whatever. You just can’t trust that it is genuine. EBay (and others) know this, and so they have a policy of never sending genuine emails with embedded links.
Phishing scam reports skyrocket in April
Tuesday, May 18 2004 @ 04:51 PM GMT
By Paul Roberts, IDG News Service
Reports of a type of online crime known as “phishing” surged by almost 200 percent in April, according to figures from a computer security industry group.
The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) received reports of more than 1,100 unique phishing campaigns in April, a 178 percent increase from the previous month, according to figures shared with the IDG News Service. The reports represent a significant increase in phishing scams, which capture personal information from Internet users with a combination of unsolicited commercial (“spam”) e-mail messages and Web sites designed to look like legitimate online businesses, said Dan Maier, director of product marketing at Tumbleweed Inc. and an APWG spokesman.
The large increase comes on the heels of a 43 percent rise between February and March, with financial services and retail companies getting hit particularly hard, said Maier, Citibank Inc. alone was the target of 475 unique phishing scams in April. Each of those scams is a separate e-mail campaign that could contain tens of thousands or millions of fraudulent e-mail messages, Maier said. Citibank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ebay Inc. and its online payment service, PayPal, were also hit hard in April. Ebay was the target of 221 unique phishing campaigns, PayPal of 135, he said. Other leading financial institutions were also frequent targets of phishing scams, including U.S. Bancorp. and FleetBoston Financial Corp., Maier said.
“Based on what (Tumbleweed) has been hearing in the last three or four weeks from our banking customers, there’s an increasing urgency to solve the phishing problem,” he said. “What’s driving it, if you look at the (APWG) statistics for April, is that these companies are getting nailed.” While each report recorded by the APWG corresponds to a unique phishing campaign, the type of phishing attack that is used may not be new in every case, Maier said. In fact, the APWG has evidence that phishing Web pages are being traded online, in the same way that e-mail addresses are traded and sold by spammers, he said.
“This stuff is really prepackaged and ready to go. All you need is a Web server to host it on,” he said.
The growing problem also points to increasing interest in the scams by malicious hacking groups and organized crime, Maier said.
“We’ve had confirmation from law enforcement in the U.S. that organized crime is behind some of these scams. We also do work looking at hacker sites, and we can see that hackers and script kiddies are definitely paying attention to this phenomenon and are beginning to work together,” he said. Financial gain may be one motivation for the increase in phishing scams. A recent study by Gartner Inc. found that as much as 3 percent of phishing scams may be successful, resulting in Internet users divulging sensitive information to the scam artists.
Based on a survey of 5,000 adult Internet users, Gartner estimated that as many as 30 million adults have experienced a phishing attack and that 1.78 million adults could have fallen victim to the scams. The APWG said in the past that around 5 percent of phishing scams are successful, but that figure is based on anecdotal evidence, Maier said.
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Top 8 Career Success Tips
From Padgett-Thompson e-newsletter
1. Build strong working relationships. Develop relationships with people in different departments and at all levels of the organization. People who know you and like you will help you succeed.
2.Become an excellent listener. Active listening skills will literally double your communication effectiveness—and good communicators go far. People will be drawn to you and will respect you, as well.
3. Set professional and personal goals—and create a plan for achieving them. Successful people have a plan. Determine where you want to go in your career, and map out specific steps you need to take to get there.
4. Be accountable. You’ll gain far more respect for taking responsibility for your mistakes than for blaming others and making excuses.
5. Do it NOW! Be someone who takes action. Procrastinating, mulling it over or analyzing things to death will strand you on the lower rungs of the career ladder.
6. Maintain high visibility. You’ve got to stand out from the crowd. Volunteer for high-visibility assignments, work on your organization’s pet charity project, write for the company newsletter, etc.
7. Learn to embrace change. Be prepared to accept new responsibilities, use new technologies, implement new processes, and in a word—change. Successful people are eager to adapt and grow.
8. Keep your skills sharp and your knowledge up to date. Skills become outdated fast these days! To stay sharp, take advantage of workshops and seminars, night courses, e-learning, audio and video training resources, and more.
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