Fraudsters break all records in #Japan relief ripoffs

Fraudsters break all records in Japan relief ripoffs

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on 3/15/11

Fraudster scumbags have beaten all records in setting up fake Japan relief pages, fielding more than 1.7 million malware pages, 419 scams trading on the Japanese disasters, 50+ fake domains with "Japan tsunami" or "Japan earthquake" in their URLs. MacWorld recommends donating via the Red Cross, or other established charities that you're familiar with.

Monday, Trend Micro reported on one phishing site that included "japan" in its URL, saying that the site was harvesting email addresses and other personal information from unsuspecting users.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a joint effort by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, issued an alert last Friday that warned consumers to be wary of responding to donation requests following a disaster like Japan's.

Fake anti-virus vendors have also gotten in on the action, according to the SAN Institute's Internet Storm Center (ISC). Makers of the bogus security software stay atop breaking news by automatically poisoning search engine results with links to their wares.

The ISC came up with a tally of 1.7 million poisoned pages that tout the earthquake and tsunami, a number beyond even Google's ability to rapidly delete.

Fraudsters prey on Japan earthquake charity donations

Posted via email from The New Word Order