These reports talk about email accounts being "hacked". Isn't it just a case of being conned to reveal your password online to someone posing as your ISP (internet service provider)? FN
New e-mail scam offers to 'rescue' friends trapped in Nigeria FN Panaji (GOA), Aug 30: Goa-based Rudolf Ludwig's friends started getting frantic email messages about the musician-turned-art gallery owner being stranded in Nigeria, and badly in need of money. Back home in Goa, his wife Yolanda fielded off telephone calls, explaining that nothing of this sort had happened. When even more friends started phoning in, Ludwig, himself very much in Goa itself, realised his e-mail account on the popular Gmail network had been hacked into. His password had been changed, and he couldn't enter his own account. Some scamster -- probably based in Nigeria -- was trying to get Ludwig's friends to send in $3500 each, ostensibly to help a "distressed" Ludwig "return home". This new scam to emerge on the internet has seen bogus emails claiming that a common friend was attending a conference in Africa on "Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education". Then, the person whose email account was hacked is portrayed as being stranded in Africa after forgetting in a taxi a "little bag" that contained "money, passport, documents and other valuables." Friends, concerned over the development and who write back to the hijacked account, are replied to, and told to send the money3500 urgently. A mail, sent in by this correspondent, to the taken-over email address draws in a pathetic reply: "I am in so much pain here, the stress is too much for me. I had been trying to find a solution to my passport issue through the Embassy, that is why i am not able to reply you on time. I need your help so much and on time to help me out of this place...." The advice that follows quickly is to transfer the money to one Abdullahi Umar at Victoria Island in Lagos State, Nigeria 23401 using the Western Union money transfer service. Commented Rajesh Kankaria, one of the techies participating on discussion over such issues on the India-GII mailing list, that looks at internet-related issues in India: "Someone approached me about her friend (a senior scientist) whose account got hacked and received exactly similar email, saying the same stuff...lost passport...don't have money...blah blah. It happened with a Hotmail account." Comments Sarbajit Roy: "(The person) probably has allowed a key-logger to be installed on his PC or he was careless. India's IT Act has international scope. It's possible to contact the State's IT Secretary who is the ex-officio Adjudicating Officer under IT ACT. The AO has wide powers under the IT rules." Mumbai-based techie-journo Vicram Crishna says: "I got an alert from (the geek tips site) Slashdot.org the other day, which advised always keeping your GMail account set to https:// (save that in your bookmarks), and never clicking links from within mail but always typing in the address with https:// (this referred to GMail/Google links and not that of other service providers, which may not support https://)." "I am not sure that this will protect you from keylogging, but secure behaviour can become a habit, once you start practising it," says Crishna. Keystroke logging (or keylogging) is a diagnostic tool used in software development that captures the user's keystrokes. It can be used to check sources of errors, measure computer productivity, in law enforcement and espionage, and also to obtain passwords or encryption keys and thus bypassing other security measures. Keyloggers, widely available on the net, can also be used by private parties to spy on the computer usage of others. Some IT experts point out that "hacking" has gone beyond the definition thought of in the IT Act, in this fast-moving field. Tech experts in Goa suggest "playing along" with the scamsters, and trying to track their phone numbers. nigeriapolice.org is also seen as one option for taking action in such cases. But, for some reason, the Nigeria Police site also reflects complaints against citizens of that country, for being involved in email-related scams. -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490 Links from Goa: http://goalinks.livejournal.com/ Campaign for real beauty : watch this film. Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does :: http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/home.asp
