Phishing: The lawyer says

http://www.cybervictims.edu.tf/

Once you receive such alluring mails which tells you will get loads of money without any legal hassles etc……………… do not be carried away. THIS IS ILLEGAL AND FRAUDULENT ACTIVITY .Yes yes.. I know when the person turns up physically and shows his passport and other legal documents then you are again made to believe “what’s wrong?”.. But it is not right either. The man in front of you, who claims to be the sender of the mail or the representative of the sender, could actually be a racketeer of economic offences waiting to trap innocent, “greedy” individuals like you. But remember, his passport can be a fake passport and even the *registered papers * that he waves in front of you can also be dubious. Once you start giving your personal financial informations, he notes every minute detail and then either he would tell you to give him some money to clear the registration charges or the customs charges of the airport. But beware……. The Indian Penal Code strictly forbids anyone to play fraud with financial informations of individuals. Similarly the amended version of the Information technology act 2008 also touches upon the points of financial frauds in various sections while dealing with identity theft, cheating by impersonation etc. The fraudulent person is subjected to financial penalties as well as imprisonment.

Hence , do remember , those who are trying to play fraudulent games with innocent individual’s beliefs, can not escape from the clutches of law once caught; and those who feel this is the best way to gain money in a “super fast” way… hold on your monetary appetite. This could be a super fast way to loose all your hard earned savings as well.

PHISHING-PART II

http://www.cybervictims.edu.tf/

A typical Phishing Mail would look like as below:
“I sincerely ask for forgiveness for I know this may seem like a complete intrusion to your privacy but right about now this is my option of communication. This mail might come to you as a surprise and the temptation to ignore it as unserious could come into your mind; but please consider it a divine wish and accept it with a deep sense of humility.

I am aware that this is certainly an unconventional approach to starting a relationship.
I am the personal account officer to the great late diseased who has an account in one of our banks here in Burkina Faso . The account was opened in 2001 and he died in 2004 without a written or oral WILL and since 2004 nobody has operated on this account again hence the money is floating and if I do not remit this money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing and Government of Burkina Faso will confiscate the funds for their personal use which I personally don't want such incident to happen being that this is a great opportunity for me.

My contact is for you to please assist me to transfer the fund ($10.6000.00 USD) Ten Million Six Hundred Thousand United State Dollars from a Cooperate Bank here in Burkina Faso to an overseas account. First, I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction. This is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential. I am sure and have confidence of your ability and reliability to prosecute a transaction of this great magnitude. I solicit your assistance to enable us transfer the said amount into your safe account for onward investment.

You can either provide us with an existing account or to set up a new Bank account immediately to receive this money, even an empty a/c can serve to receive this money, as long as you will remain honest to me till the end of this important business trusting in you and believing that you will never let me down either now or in future because this business is my life. The owner of this account is a foreigner and no other person knows about this account or anything concerning it, the account has no other beneficiary and until his death he was the manager of the company. My investigation through the National immigration department & Ministries here proved to me as well that he was single as at the time of his entry into the Republic of Burkina Faso . As a matter of fact, I have decided to transfer this fund abroad for investment and also to use my own share of the fund to take my wife to abroad for liver damage treatment. Your assistance as a foreigner is necessary because the management of the bank will welcome any foreigner who has correct information to this account which I will give to you immediately, if you are interested to do this business with me. There is no risk in this business. With my position here in the bank the money can be transferred to any account you can provide with assurance that this money will be intact pending our physical arrival in your country for sharing. Upon successful transfer without any disappointment from your side, I am only contacting you as a foreigner because this money cannot be approved to a local person here, but can only be approved to any foreigner who has the correct information of the account, which I will provide for you. So you should provide me with your correct account details where you will like the fund to be transferred to, or you can set up a new account for the transfer even an empty account is ok. At the conclusion of the transfer you will take 40%, 10% will be for any expenses both parties incurred in the process of this business and the remaining 50% will be for me. As soon as I hear from you and upon your strong assurance that you will not let me down once the fund goes into your account I will then send you the Text of application form which you will fill with your banking information and send to my bank here for immediate transfer of the fund to your account. If you are interested, please forward the following information as below:

{1} Your Name/company's name and full address,
{2} Bank Name:............
{3} Bank Address...
{4} Account No:.........
{5} Swift Code...{if any}
{6} Account Holder's Name: ..........
{7} your telephone Num. both Home, Office & Cell/Mobile and fax
Numbers...
{8} Your Occupation
{9} Your Valid ID
Waiting for your urgent reply”

Well, this was a mail (infact one of hundreds of mails I receive every day) I got just day before yesterday. Isn’t the informations provided inside the mail ,enough to tempt any ordinary individual? When I opened my first gmail account some three years back, I felt I got a fortune when I received a mail stating I have won a lottery. No no, I didn’t put my name in any such easy money making game. The sender told me it was a randomly searched name and I was the lucky one. I was about to send my informations when suddenly my instincts told me some thing is wrong. I consulted with my banker sister, my criminologist husband and couple of my police friends. Almost all of our net experiences were similar and I decided to resist my temptation. The incidence motivated my sister to inquire and tell me it was a kind of fraud that helps the mischief monger to access the victim’s financial accounts. My husband who was already researching on these incidences immediately went for a deeper research with me as a “case study” and told me this was nothing but another type of cyber crime which India is not very familiar with.

PHISHING: PART-I

http://www.cybervictims.edu.tf/

How many of you readers love spending your leisure time by catching fish in serene atmosphere ? I am sure , most of you cherish the dream of such beautiful holidaying in your ancestral homes /villages with lots of water around. Well, I do... And what do we do then? Just sit quietly on the bank of the river/ pond with the fishing rod, thinking all sorts of thoughts and suddenly the pull in the string…….. yeeeeeee you got the game of the day.

But then imagine when you are the FISH who just gulped the trap … yup………... this happens often in the cyber space. I dedicate this blog to those who have become victims of such crimes which is called “PHISHING”. What is “Phishing? When for the first time my English Professor mother came across this spelling, she was very surprised. She asked me straight away…….... is this the way you write English? Well, I am not born as an “English speaking individual”, but I have learnt it along with couple of other languages and I know “Phishing” is a word which will make every educated individual of my mother’s age, stare blankly at me and ask the same question. Yes, Phishing is a newly coined word which was born in the 1996 ( ref: Stroik& Huang(2008), Nature & Distribution of Phishing, published in Crimes of the Internet ( edited by Schmalleger & Pittaro, Prentice Hall publication) for the cyber generation . The word actually means “…criminals’ creation and use of emails and websites –designed to look like emails and websites of well known legitimate business , financial institutions…in order to deceive the internet users in order to disclose their bank and financial account information or their personal data such as usernames and passwords…”( the information was provided by US department of justice, (USDOJ 2004). But then, I am wrong in saying *only* “older generation”. Many of our generation also do not know how they are being “fish out of pond”. Well, I do not blame men and women who are oblivion of this fact. This is a hard truth that some brilliant tricksters have taken to internet to gain money in this easiest possible way by duping innocent people. The more shocking news is, many believe these sorts of mails as genuine and give in.