Thursday, June 01, 2006

Phishermen are Trolling MySpace for Victims

If your children use MySpace - or you use it yourself - here is a warning from Websense:

"Websense® Security Labs™ has discovered a phishing attack that attempts to steal the account information of MySpace.com users. A hyperlink is first delivered to victims via AOL Instant Messenger. Users who follow this link are taken to a fraudulent website that spoofs the MySpace.com login page. This page captures their MySpace account information and then forwards the user to the actual MySpace.com website."

"The fraudulent site also sets a cookie on the victim's computer, which prevents the phishing attack from being displayed on any subsequent visits."

The phishing site is located in California and was up at the time of this alert.

For the full alert, along with a screen shot of the phishing site, link here.

MySpace is a hugely popular site (and when anything becomes popular) it attracts what I refer to as the cyber-scum element.

Here is an interesting article from MSNBC and Rob Stafford. If you are a user of MySpace, or care about someone who is a user, this is a great resource with information on how to navigate the waters of MySpace safely.

Why parents must mind MySpace - Dateline NBC - MSNBC.com

While I'm not sure what the intention is in "phishing" the waters at MySpace, a smart person is extremely careful before giving out any personal information on the Internet!

Here is a recent post, I wrote about how these "Internet Child Abusers" are going to be targeted through their financial transactions:

Catching Child Predators by following the Money Trail

In case anyone is unfamiliar with Phishing, here is a place to start learning:

Internet Crimes are On the Rise and Deadlier than Ever

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