MS09-034 is coming..

Just a reminder that Microsoft are announcing an out-of-band patch today to fix a critical IE / Visual Studio flaw. If you manually authorise updates to client PCs via WSUS, then you will need to break the usual schedule and deploy this as soon as you can.

More info here and here.

"Best Crisis Prices": dotbestshop.com / bestcrisisprices.com fake shops

I mentioned bestcrisesprices.com a few weeks ago, and it seems that they have a new domain called dotbestshop.com which is also a fake ecommerce site.


Both sites are hosted on an an anonymous hosting account at 124.217.231.121 in Malaysia, the domain contact details are either anonymous or fake. The contact details on the website are also fake, and have been stolen from legitimate businesses.

It claims to be a member of the BBB, but it isn't as the BBB reports that it is mis-using their logo.

This is part of a large organized crime ring, nominally connected with China. Although it claims to be based in Louisiana, there is no evidence at all that this is a US operation. Avoid dealing with them at all costs.

Even the bad guys need a back office

Last November, I posted a warning about Ran-De-Vou which was recruiting for translators.. the problem being that the company was part of an organised crime ring and the translations themselves were aided phishing and the like.

Well, "Juice" gave them a go and the result is this interesting insight into the bad guys' back office functions.. enjoy!

"Real Host Ltd" is a real sewer

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Even more pathetic SpamCop.net phish

I thought that phishing emails couldn't get more rubbish than this but it turns out that I was wrong. Enjoy:

Subject: FINAL ACCOUNT UPDATE!!!
From: "SPAMCOP SUPPORT TEAM" <helpdesk@spamcop.net>
Date: Wed, July 22, 2009 7:15 pm

Dear spamcop.net Subscriber,

We are currently carrying-out a mantainace
process to your spamcop.net account, to
complete this, you must reply to
this mail immediately, and enter your
User Name here (,,,,,,,,) And Password here
(.......) if you are the rightful owner of
this account.

This process we help us to fight against
spam mails.Failure to summit your password,
will render your email address
in-active from our database.

NOTE: If your have done this before, you may ignore
this mail. You will be send a password reset
messenge in next seven (7)
working days after undergoing this process
for security reasons.

Thank you for using spamcop.net!
THE SPAMCOP TEAM

The Reply-To email address is verification_teamss12@yahoo.com.hk, originating IP is 203.59.222.34.

43.gs: massive Google SERPs poisoning

I can't tell if this is accidental or deliberate, but there are a whole bunch of spam entries in Google for the 43.gs domain as you can see from this search.

It looks like some sort of redirect or copy, but the odd thing is that the 43.gs subdomain actually points to the legitimate server.

For example, ethviumvthvie.43.gs resolves as 198.246.98.21 which belongs to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). For some reason, the CDC server accepts requests for ethviumvthvie.43.gs as a request to display the genuine website.

As a result, Google has about 3.2 million results for 43.gs subdomains, all of which are duplicates of existing sites.

It looks like 43.gs offers some sort of legitimate URL shortening service based on subdomain names rather than the more common tinurl/bit.ly. Have the bad guys found a way to use this to their advantage? Are they suddenly going to switch traffic to somewhere bad?

43.gs is showing a small bump in traffic recently, perhaps as a result of this?

Presumably there is a way of telling your web server to reject this kind of request.

Really pathetic SpamCop.net webmail phish

Probably the most pathetic phish ever - the bad guys nicely provide a space in the email for you to put your username and password and then email it back. Combined with a fairly vague grasp of the English language, then it's hard to see that this would fool anyone at all.

From: "SpamCop Webmaster online" <spamcop.net.webmaster@mchsi.com>
Date: Tue, July 14, 2009 4:11 pm
Cc: recipient list not shown:;
Priority: Normal

Dear SpamCop Webmail online Email Account Owner,

Important notice, harmful virus was detected in your account which can be harmful to our subscriber unit.You are to enter your Username and Password here {____________, __________} to enable us set in an anti virus in your user account to clear up this virus. we do need your co-operation in this, Providing us with this information we enable us insert in your account an anti virus machine for clean up.

We are sorry for the inconveniences this might have cost you. Failure to do this, we are sorry to let you know that your account will be deleted immediately to prevent it from arming our subscriber unit.

Thank you for using SpamCop Webmail,
We are glad at your service,
SpamCop Webmaster online.

Originating IP is an open proxy at 200.65.129.2.

Korea DDOS - run for the hills!

The recent DDOS attacks against Korean and US government sites is well known, with calls for reprisals ranging from "cyber-attacks" to the occasional nutjob suggesting that real bombs are used.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the C&C server for the botnet carrying out the attack may well be in the UK. So perhaps we can expect a rush of malformed packets and/or Tomahawk cruise missiles heading the the UK soon..

via

Phorm: hahahahah

With a bit of luck, it appears that Phorm may be going down the toilet, as BT announce that they are not going to deploy Phorm's deep packet inspection technology. More at the BBC News site.

With a bit of luck, Phorm's share price will end up as a penny stock very soon.

Domain scam: ntwifinetwork.com / js-wifi.cn

The old Chinese domain scam has been around for years, but these guys are getting lazy because they haven't changed their domains for months, this is esentially unchanged from April.

Subject: Domain Dispute and Registration
From: "Sunny"
Date: Thu, July 2, 2009 4:07 am

To whom it may concern: 2009-7-2

We are a domain name registration service company in Asia,

Last week we received a formal application submited by Justin Lin who wanted to use the keyword "REDACTED" to register the Internet Brand and with suffix such as .cn /.com.cn /.net.cn/.hk/ .asia/ domain names.

After our initial examination, we found that these domain names to be applied for registration are same as your domain name and trademark. We aren¡¯t sure whether you have any relation with him. Because these domain names would produce possible dispute, now we have hold down his registration, but if we do not get your company¡¯s an reply in the next 5 working days, we will approve his company's application

In order to handle this issue better, Please contact us by Fax ,Telephone or Email as soon as possible.



Yours sincerely

Sunny

Checking Department

Tel: 86 513 8532 1087
Fax: 86 513 8532 2065
Email:Sunny@ntwifinetwork.com
Website: www.js-wifi.cn

Our File No.:2272363

Originating IP is 122.193.216.10.

As ever, legitimate domain registrars do not send out this type of email because they are NOT responsible for this activity. Sometimes the Chinese domains get registered, sometimes they are ALREADY registered, and often they never get registered. But before you panic and pay money to these scammers, consider this: there are hundreds of top-level domains in the world. Do you really want to buy your domain for all of them? The answer is probably "no".

The best advice is to ignore this email completely.