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By admin, February 27, 2009 10:02

Hot:

Received an email this week that looks like your typical spam and it comes with a DOC file attached to it. I included the md5 in the subject for ease of tagging and searching.

It is boring stuff, but it seems very familiar. I am sure this template of spam (if you will) has been sent to me before. Its subject says its from Ms. Cynthia Chalker (From Canada), but the reply to is a South African address, and it’s using msn.com/hotmail.com as the method of delivery (apparently).

And like it says, I have a winning notification that I have won the South African…something. But I have won. Phone number to call to claim my winning prize, and a DOC file attachment.

Obviously I have not won anything. This could be a very simple attempt to get you to call and give information away, or for them to convince you to charge your credit card for processing fees I am not certain.

Continue reading 'Unknown DOC file in email a7b207839f751a525f2328f3a07e7cb9'»

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By admin, February 7, 2009 12:36

Hot:

If you had an opportunity to view your local newspapers job classifieds this weekend you may well find an ad like this one.

It looks like a highly sincere advertisement seeking folks who would like an opportunity like this. They obviously are seeking to appeal to anyone interested in a highly flexible and possibly rewarding (getting paid to shop) opportunity. The site seems to indicate a 4-12 hour work week on average and you are considered part time. This is all cool. However, what isn’t so cool is the lack of ANY security features for the sites ‘job application’ forms.

In my eyes this is very troublesome that anyone would submit this much personal information without any measures at encrypting the data to the site. And it wants a LOT of data from you.

Continue reading 'Looking for Work – Qualityshopper.org wants you, but does it secure your data?'»

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By Admin, September 15, 2008 12:55

Hot:

It seems I had such a great summer holiday that I decided not to update anything on this site over the summer. But I haven’t forgot, and have a lot of content that once edited will be posted soon.

Yes, not only my blog entries in "Text" form but additionally, I have some audio and video content that will be posted in combination to our current content. I am still working out the upgrade process at this stage and this will be conducted first, then the content plugins will be added.

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By Admin, December 15, 2007 10:38

Hot:

Finally, a “critical” Java runtime update from Apple by ZDNet‘s Ryan Naraine — Apple has shipped a long-overdue Java runtime update to plug at least 30 vulnerabilities that expose Mac OS X users to remote code execution attacks.

This article really only highlights the issue. Quicktime has (and still has) many bugs so many that I’d simply deem it the ‘Buggiest and Most Insecure Application of ALL TIME’. Anyone who uses Quicktime should REMOVE IT immediately, and then clean there system. I’d even recommend cleaning the registry of any APPLE or QUICKTIME entries, something I’m typically loathe to do under any circumstances. Apple simply seems to not understand the security climate in todays world, or doesn’t care about it’s users. Either way it’s reprehensible that they are doing so well in the technology markets without putting security first.

Apple could learn a lot from Microsoft on this, but I’m not saying Microsoft’s approach is superior, I’m just saying it’s actually far more committed to keeping it’s user base informed. Apple seems to prefer just keeping us in the dark, or to use an alliteration, they prefer to keep the apples on the tree so they don’t bonk someone on the head and perhaps wake them up to reality. Apple’s products and OS is really insecure! This is like many ignorant companies that seem to think if ‘we have a security breach, we keep it secret’, and this is the approach I find criminal. I for one am lobbying governments to change this, and FORCE ANYONE with sensitive data or source code to proprietary OS’s to FULLY DISCLOSE vulnerabilities to reduce ones exposure to 0-day attacks.

It took Apple 6 months (!!!!) to come up with the latest patch, and it didn’t fix all of them, actually of the 30 it claimed, only 18 are TRULY fixed. I’d call it lying…I don’t mix my fruit up.’

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By Admin, November 9, 2007 12:53

Hot:

Really? A FREE YEAR of Broadband?!? Nobody gives away a free year…

Recently I’ve received copies of a Phishing Attempt that looks like it’s from Shaw (a cable/internet/telephone service company in Canada). This phishing attempt is congruous to the Ebay and banking phishes of the recent past, in that it actually does NOT resemble a ‘real’ email, rather a fictional email to get people excited, in this case instead of warning the user it attempts a positive reaction from “getting free internet for a year”. Whoopie! A years worth of internet from Shaw isn’t that expensive. Phishing attempts are typically NOT viral or malware orientated but certainly can and do use such methods. In this case it looks like a standard email spam sent via exploited web sites.

This is a sophisticated method. It uses a similar style as Shaw uses in their correspondence and uses a legit; if inappropriate, email address. The email was generated and sent using multiple methods so tracking it will be harder to accomplish. Additionally, I shall show the details of the spam and my analysis. Our whois data will be included in the rest of the article.

First off, I will advise of the RED FLAGS in this phishing attempt

#1- “A Free Year of Broadband” – This doesn’t make sense. Shaw has trademarks and service marks that it would use to advertise it’s broadband internet service. Only someone ignorant of Shaw’s trademarks would say this. It’s really unlikely anyone who really works for Shaw would make this error.

#2 – Canadian Law states that any ‘contest’ or ‘giveaways’ contain details of said event. In most cases it’s prudent to disclaim whether or not the contest is allowed in Quebec, since the law is vastly different, and Quebec law generally does NOT allow this type of Contest. (disclaimer: I’m in no way a lawyer, but I am aware of consumer rights.). Missing the disclaimer is a definite flag

#3 – The email that is seen in the From: header is not a normal Shaw correspondence email account.

#4 – The link clearly shows a ‘secure’ link, but in no way is it going to a ‘secure’ site.

#5 – Typical email headers (on email from Shaw) missing

So just upon a quick review of this email we can deduce that it’s not a valid email. To get more pertinent details I’ll analyze these email in detail. I won’t paste the email headers in entirety, any ambiguity will be displayed by ‘XXXXXXXX’, to avoid email harvesting, but I will show you what details were more noteworthy.

The return-path was interesting. One was:

apache@utel16.besthosting.com.ua

, the other one was:

nobody@omega.omc.net

This would indicate to me that the web server sent this email, and in typical hosting fashion, it would be doing so via script on one of the hosts or virtual hosts on the system.

None of the received headers would indicate anything unexpected here, “omega” even has SSL/TLS

enabled but verify set to no.

The header in one of the emails is very interesting:

Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2007 20:49:28 +0200

From: “Shaw Communications Inc.” service@shaw.ca

Subject: Win a year of free broadband

To: XXXXXXX@shaw.ca

Reply-to: service@shaw.ca

Message-id: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX@utel16.besthosting.com.ua

MIME-version: 1.0

Content-type: text/html

X-PHP-Script: 213.186.117.120/~loveterra/indexzz.php for 82.208.212.146

Date and time indicates a East European Time zone. I know Shaw doesn’t have any servers in Europe…

The X-PHP-Script header shows a very interesting detail of where this email came from. We’ll come back to this IP in a bit. But this is a key indicator of an exploited web site on a hosting company or something similar. This IP definitely hosts a web server, and with the above mentioned user account, but at time of checking this link generated a error.

The for address 82.208.212.146 is interesting as it resolves to:

whois -h whois.geektools.com 82.208.212.146 …

GeekTools Whois Proxy v5.0.4 Ready.

Final results obtained from whois.ripe.net.

Results:

% This is the RIPE Whois query server #1.

% The objects are in RPSL format.

%

% Rights restricted by copyright.

% See http://www.ripe.net/db/copyright.html

% Note: This output has been filtered.

% To receive output for a database update, use the “-B” flag.

% Information related to ’82.208.212.0 – 82.208.212.255′

inetnum: 82.208.212.0 – 82.208.212.255

netname: ITSOLUTIONSNET

descr: ITSolutions, Obrenoviceva 124 4/10

descr: 18000 Nis

descr: Serbia and Montenegro

country: CS

admin-c: IS1188-RIPE

tech-c: AZ919-RIPE

status: ASSIGNED PA

mnt-by: PTTSRBIJANET-MNT

source: RIPE # Filtered

person: Ivan Stankovic

address: ITSolutions

address: YU

e-mail: i.stankovic@my-its.net

phone: +38118512796

fax-no: +38118512797

nic-hdl: IS1188-RIPE

source: RIPE # Filtered

person: Aleksandar Zakic

address: ITSolutions NET

address: CS

e-mail: a.zakic@my-its.net

phone: +381-63-222-361

fax-no: +381-18-512-797

nic-hdl: AZ919-RIPE

source: RIPE # Filtered

% Information related to ’82.208.192.0/19AS13091′

route: 82.208.192.0/19

descr: JP PTT Srbija

descr: PTT Srbija Net

origin: AS13091

mnt-by: PTTSRBIJANET-MNT

source: RIPE # Filtered

Results brought to you by the GeekTools WHOIS Proxy

Server results may be copyrighted and are used with permission.

Reviewing the other IP address of the X-PHP-Header gives us this info:

whois -h whois.geektools.com 213.186.117.120 …

GeekTools Whois Proxy v5.0.4 Ready.

Final results obtained from whois.ripe.net.

Results:

% This is the RIPE Whois query server #3.

% The objects are in RPSL format.

%

% Rights restricted by copyright.

% See http://www.ripe.net/db/copyright.html

% Note: This output has been filtered.

% To receive output for a database update, use the “-B” flag.

% Information related to ’213.186.117.0 – 213.186.117.143′

inetnum: 213.186.117.0 – 213.186.117.143

netname: UTEL-DC5

descr: Utel DataCenter networks. Colocation

country: UA

admin-c: UNOC-RIPE

tech-c: UNOC-RIPE

status: ASSIGNED PA

mnt-by: AS6877-MNT

remarks: INFRA-AW

source: RIPE # Filtered

role: Utel NOC

address: 101, Volodymyrska str.

address: 01033, Kyiv, Ukraine

phone: +380 44 2359001

fax-no: +380 44 2304560

e-mail: noc@utel.net.ua

admin-c: OLE-RIPE

tech-c: BES100-RIPE

tech-c: OLE-RIPE

tech-c: JIM-RIPE

tech-c: ALT-RIPE

tech-c: UHM-RIPE

nic-hdl: UNOC-RIPE

mnt-by: AS6877-MNT

source: RIPE # Filtered

% Information related to ’213.186.112.0/20AS16124′

route: 213.186.112.0/20

descr: Utel DataCenter, Ukraine

origin: AS16124

mnt-by: AS6877-MNT

source: RIPE # Filtered

Results brought to you by the GeekTools WHOIS Proxy

Server results may be copyrighted and are used with permission.

So, it looks like someone possibly in Serbia and Montenegro, ran a cross site script residing on a server in the Ukraine, against utel16.besthosting.com.ua which sent the email. One would actually have to test this out, which I have not done to confirm this. This is a dangerous step I decided to avoid for brevity.

[page_break]

Looking at another similar email we see:

Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:24:54 +0100 (CET)

From: “Shaw Communications Inc.”

Subject: Win a year of free broadband

To: XXXXXXXXX@shaw.ca

Reply-to: service@shaw.ca

Message-id:

MIME-version: 1.0

Content-type: text/html

X-Authentication-warning: omega.omc.net: Host localhost.omc.net (127.0.0.1)

claimed to be omega.omc.net

But we can see the authentication warning from this server. No detail unfortunately.

Regardless, the viewable content of these two emails is identical, including an ‘offical’ Shaw footer to further reinforce it’s legitimacy, but it’s futile. These are NOT from SHAW.

The content included in plaintext: However to ensure not even ‘google’ browses the evil link from our site I have sanitized it so it breaks. Details to fix will be below the actual email content:

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

209.85.15.18 is the address removed above with “Removed.example.com”. This address resolves to:

11/09/07 14:19:19 whois 209.85.15.18@whois.geektools.com

whois -h whois.geektools.com 209.85.15.18 …

GeekTools Whois Proxy v5.0.4 Ready.

Final results obtained from whois.arin.net.

Results:

OrgName: Everyones Internet

OrgID: EVRY

Address: 390 Benmar

Address: Suite 200

City: Houston

StateProv: TX

PostalCode: 77060

Country: US

ReferralServer: rwhois://rwhois.ev1servers.net:4321/

NetRange: 209.85.0.0 – 209.85.127.255

CIDR: 209.85.0.0/17

NetName: EVRY-BLK-15

NetHandle: NET-209-85-0-0-1

Parent: NET-209-0-0-0-0

NetType: Direct Allocation

NameServer: NS1.EV1SERVERS.NET

NameServer: NS2.EV1SERVERS.NET

Comment:

RegDate: 2005-12-14

Updated: 2006-11-28

RAbuseHandle: ABUSE477-ARIN

RAbuseName: Abuse Department

RAbusePhone: +1-713-579-2850

RAbuseEmail: abuse@ev1servers.net

RNOCHandle: NOC1445-ARIN

RNOCName: Noc

RNOCPhone: +1-713-579-2850

RNOCEmail: noc@ev1servers.net

OrgAbuseHandle: ABUSE271-ARIN

OrgAbuseName: Abuse

OrgAbusePhone: +1-214-782-7802

OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@theplanet.com

OrgNOCHandle: NOC1445-ARIN

OrgNOCName: Noc

OrgNOCPhone: +1-713-579-2850

OrgNOCEmail: noc@ev1servers.net

OrgTechHandle: VST3-ARIN

OrgTechName: Stinson, Valarie

OrgTechPhone: +1-713-579-2850

OrgTechEmail: admin2@ev1servers.net

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2007-11-08 19:10

# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN’s WHOIS database.

At this point this site seems to be up. Anyone receiving any email similar to this should simply delete it.

If you think it really is legit, call Shaw directly and ask them BEFORE you click on the link. I feel this analysis is accurate and is limited in it’s conclusions. However I hope it serves to help or assist any other who seeks to eliminate phishers, and other scammers.