November 24, 2004
Be wary of calls 'from Visa'
In the UK, where fraud appears to be rife, and scams particularly devious, credit card customers are being called by fraudsters posing as Visa security employees. They already have the customers credit card number, but are after the CVV numbers printed on the signature panel on the back of the card. They need this number to enable them make illegal purchases on various web sites, with the associated credit card numbers.
According to a report in The Register, they say they are calling about a suspicious transaction that they know the customer did not make, and that will be credited back to their account. With great guile and cunning, they then ask the intended victims for their CVV number to "verify that you are in possession of the card". As The Register rightly points out, a very nasty side effect of the scam is "that users who see suspicious activity on their account when they get their next statement might wrongly assume it is already being dealt with".
To make things worse, banks generally take a dim view of late reporting of suspicious transactions and indeed can turn down a request for reimbursement on that basis alone.
So- if 'Visa' call you along these lines- make an excuse - say you will call them back- and call the number provided on the back of your card.
Remember- it is a fact of life that Visa don't need to ask you for numbers on your card- they know the last time you bought underwear - and where. They will, however, ask you to confirm your address, etc- so it can be a close call to decide who/what to trust. Best course of action is to call them back. Trust is becoming an increasingly rare commodity.
Beware of emails from relatives seeking accident money
Elderly people in Japan were duped out of 2.9 billion yen by scammers pretending to be relatives involved in a recent accident and needing money. The scam has come to be known as the "It's me" scam by virtue of the devious methods used to entice the victims to open email, and their pocket books.
read the story
Lesson of the day
If little Johnny, whom you haven't seen in ions, sends you an email out of the blue, saying he was just hit by a Guinness truck and needs money to pay his hospital bills - don't just transfer money to the blighter - call him up. Check the story out.
Don't let your good nature turn you into a sucker. A poorer sucker. |
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Call to Action
To all you frustrated, under appreciated security programmers and developers out there in your Dogbert
infested pens, now is your chance to do something noble for mankind.
Send us your ideas for Tip of the Week and we will publish the best. It must be in language that your
granny would understand and be able to follow. Assuming your granny is not an MIT graduate.
We are trying to build a body of knowledge that helps the average user, as well as more sophisticated folk
who already have wads of techno babble infested sites to turn to.
We believe the average user gets little help from anyone, and we sorely need his or her co-operation to
secure cyberspace. The vendors try to communicate with them, but don’t seem to comprehend how truly
mystified the well- educated (non lunk headed) user really is. They make a lot of ill judged assumptions
about what people know, and as a result the message falls flat.
Bill Gates supposedly once said ‘ we don’t talk to end users’.
Needless to say, that far sighted strategic insight has long died a death and Microsoft are positively
falling over themselves to get down and dirty with the common man, or woman, as the case may be.
So keep it simple. An ABC of ‘what to do, how to do it, or what to look out for’ is particularly useful.
Remember- you may not be appreciated in your pen, but you can be in cyberspace.
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