Katrina Fraud Status

As the Gulf Coast starts to make progress in creating a sense of normalcy, it is apparent that the cyberscum of the world are still doing their very best to profit from the misery of others. With all the reports of fraud out there, I decided to put together a summary of what I see going on.

According to an article from SAP INFO, Christopher Faulkner of CI Host revealed that more than 1,000 domain names have been registered for Katrina and that a lot of them are either being used to set up malicious websites, or being auctioned off for as much as $50,000.00.

I wonder if any of the auction proceeds will go to the victims? I would like think so, but it's probably not very likely.

Here are some other interesting items that Faulkner says are going on:

"One particular type of spam, called fee-based spam, details information about private organizations claiming to have "rescue teams" based in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. For a fee that ranges from $500 to $1,000, they would deploy their people on-site to locate lost loved ones, Faulkner said. "But they don't do anything, but take the money and run."

"Internet service providers and Web-hosting companies have taken down some of the malicious Web sites, including hurricanekatrinapix.com, hurricanekatrinarelief.com and katrinadamage.com."

"CI Host has been conducting spam filter testing for Katrina-related spam e-mails and phishing activities for its 220,000-hosted Web sites. The company has been blocking between 8,000 and 10,000 Katrina-related spam or phishing e-mails per hour."

In another story from the AP, three people in a shelter in Laurel, Mississippi were caught posing as FEMA personnel. While posing as FEMA personnel, they were gathering people's personal information to use in identity theft. According to Sheriff (Larry Dykes), they will be held without bail because they are considered a flight risk. Sounds like a Sheriff, I would vote for!

Here is another updated statistic. On a post, I did a few days ago the FBI was saying there were 2300 sites related to Katrina. They are now saying there are 4,000 sites. In both estimates, they stated that 60 percent of them are coming from overseas, which is a sign that they could be fraudulent.

Please note that earlier in this post, Christopher Faulkner stated 1,000 domain names had been registered. With the FBI's report that there are now 4,000 sites, I'm not sure if Faulkner was referring to domain names registered in the United States, while the FBI was saying the number of worldwide sites? In the end, it's possible that this activity is so growing so rapidly that we are seeing conflicting reports and statistics. It will be interesting to see the final numbers.

Before I sign off, it was announced by the Red Cross (Mary Elcano, General Counsel) that they have hired a security company to monitor fraud activity related to Katrina. Any fraud they discover will be turned over to the Justice Department and the Red Cross might also seek civil damages (restitution) against those who try to wrongfully profit from this disaster.

The story from SAP INFO can be viewed by clicking on the title of this post.

Here is another post I did on people stealing FEMA uniforms and identification to commit robberies in New Orleans: http://fraudwar.blogspot.com/2005/09/robbers-posing-as-fema-personnel.html