[pchelpers] Re: News: Fake IRS E-Mail Scam Goes Phishing

Granted that some of these scams are very sophisticated and occasionally
quite credible ( I get a variety of them from the obvious through to ones
that I stop to consider), I have to say that anyone foolish enough to
believe that the IRS of any country is going to blithely hand back money,
probably deserves to get nailed. Any individual receiving e-mail purporting
to offer money for what ever reason should follow the simple expedient of
phoning the local office of that agency. Even on pay per call systems such a
precaution is cheap and simply reliable.
My sympathy palls against the mindless greed of the idiot population.

[steps down from soapbox, looks about abashedly, and exits quietly
stagecoach]

Andrew
Cartridge World Upper Hutt

ps the more whimsical amongst us will occasionally reply to such e-mails
stating that they have been forwarded to the appropriate authorities, or
advising them that as they read my reply the undetectable binary component
worm embedded in the message has invaded their system and will terminate
their system if we are contacted again.
Cheers
AH




-----Original Message-----
From: pchelpers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:pchelpers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of John Durham
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 2:11 PM
To: PC-Helpers
Subject: [pchelpers] News: Fake IRS E-Mail Scam Goes Phishing


 Nov. 30, 2005

Users are now being targeted with a new phishing attack posing as a tax
refund from the Internal Revenue Service.
By Gregg Keizer

A new phishing attack posing as a tax refund from the Internal Revenue
Service is using a configuration problem on the GovBenefits.gov Web site
to fool users into thinking they're safe in offering up personal
information such as Social Security and credit card numbers.

The fraud begins with an e-mail supposedly from the IRS, which claims
the recipient is owed a tax refund. In the message from
"taxrefunds@xxxxxxx," a link is embedded to a site where recipients can
supposedly collect the refund.

So far, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with U.K.-based
security company Sophos, that's not out of the ordinary. But this
phishing campaign goes a step farther.

"The link bounces you off a U.S. government site onto one owned by the
criminals, who are waiting to steal your credit card and Social Security
number," said Cluley.

The site, GovBenefits.gov, hasn't been hacked, said Cluley, but he
believes it has had its security configuration incorrectly set so that
URL requests are easily redirected.

That's providing an opening for the phishing scheme to do its damage.
"Absolutely, this is devious," Cluley said. "The URL really does take
people to the real site, but only for a moment before their browsers are
redirected to the bogus site that poses as an IRS page. The e-mail even
instructs people to cut and paste the address into their browsers'
address bars, which will make them even more reassured that it's not a
phishing attack."

More here:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=174403082

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