Ashampoo Database Hacked – What You Need To Know

I could spend all day, every day, reporting on nothing more than the latest cyber criminal targeted intrusions into enterprise IT systems.  Two reports from my today’s Tech Net News column illustrate that we are barely scratching the surface of this significant, continuous, and rapidly expanding problem:

European Space Agency website and FTP servers hacked

Dramatic increase in cyber attacks on critical infrastructure

If you’re an everyday reader here, then you may recall that I regularly recommend that you take advantage of the German software developer Ashampoo’s, occasionally offered free application multipacks.

The downside (for some) is, you must register and provide an email address. Additional benefits can be gained by registering as an  Ashampoo member, which includes creating a password.

Unfortunately, Ashampoo has become a victim of a cyber criminal targeted intrusion aimed at their customer database. According to the company:

“Hackers gained access to one of our servers. We discovered the break-in and interrupted it instantly. The security gap through which the hackers gained access was closed immediately.

The stolen pieces of information are data of addresses such as name and e-mail address. Billing information (e.g. credit card information or banking information) is definitely not affected … it is not stored on our system.”

If you have taken advantage of Ashampoo’s offers, then it’s important that you exercise extreme caution with any future emails sent by the company and, any unsolicited email sent by any company, for that matter.

As well, if you have registered as an Ashampoo member, it’s important that you change your account password. Additionally, if you have used the same password elsewhere (you’d be surprised how often this occurs), it’s imperative that you change these passwords immediately.

My thanks to my buddy John B. (a great Scot!), for bringing this unfortunate incident to my attention this morning.

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Will The Epsilon Data Breach Affect You? Don’t Be Surprised!

The damage yet to be realized from the Epsilon Data Management breach, in which 250 million consumers names and e-mail addresses were compromised, has the potential to be staggering.

With 2500 client customer databases residing on their servers, Epsilon likes to characterize itself as the world’s premier email marketing service. Since they are responsible for over 40 billion (generally unwanted) emails annually, I tend to characterize Epsilon less favorably.

To this point, all of the companies involved in this breach (and the list is growing daily), are aggressively making the point that customer financial and confidential information, remains secure – and, has not been stolen. However, in a cover their ass move, many of the affected companies slip in a caveat – “based on everything we know”, or words to that effect.

Now, if one fell off the turnip wagon yesterday, that response might seem acceptable, or even encouraging. Personally, I’ll be guided by what experience has taught me in relation to situations such as this; and that is – there’s a very good chance that what we’re  seeing today, is no more than the tip of the iceberg.

In the short term we can expect the following:

The incidence of targeted spam (since names, addresses, and most importantly, company affiliations are available), is sure to rise dramatically;  with a corresponding increase in malware laden email.

Based on the same information accessibility, spam phishing attempts will move up the list of cybercriminals’ preferred scams. Unfortunately, the success ratio is likely to increase dramatically.

Long term impact has yet to be determined with any accuracy – but, since the type of companies impacted by this breach tend to operates in the Twilight Zone when it comes to safeguarding their customers privacy, heightened vigilance on the Internet, particularly not responding to unsolicited emails, takes on a new urgency if you are one of those who has had previous, or current dealings, with any of the affected companies.

Quick questions: Why wasn’t this enormously sensitive customer information encrypted? Have things gone so far, that we need to legislate common sense?

Internet security provider Kaspersky, has put together a list of the companies impacted by Epsilon’s data breach which is worth reviewing – if you’re unsure of a relationship with an affected company.

From Kaspersky Lab’s Threat Post:

The number of companies that was affected by the attack on online marketing firm Epsilon Data Management has continued to grow, virtually by the hour.

Many retailers, banks and other firms sent out notification letters to their customers on Monday, and to help you keep track of who’s affected, we’ve compiled a list of known companies victimized by the Epsilon attack.

There are likely to be even more companies that send out breach notification letters in the coming days, so check back for updates. Here is a list of companies known to have been affected so far: List of Companies Hit By Epsilon Breach.

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Gmail Service Center and PayPal Spam Scams Are Back!

The old “Due to the congestion in all Gmail users and removal of all unused Gmail Accounts” scam, is making a reappearance. This scam has been around for years, and every so often it makes its way back.

This occasional reappearance tells me one thing – this scam pays off for the cyber-criminals who are behind it. Since new users are continuously signing on to the Internet, they are essentially a new crop of potential victims.

To an inexperienced user, this could look like an official email, and the enclosed link makes it simple to get this problem solved with just a mouse click. What could be easier than that?

If you receive an email that is supposedly from “Gmail Service Centers”, and it addresses you in any way other than your name (Dear Valued Member, for example), it’s a scam. Google is not likely to forget your name, right?

At one and the same time, the following email purportedly from PayPal, is making the rounds once again. Similar to the Gmail scam it opens with a generic salutation – in this case,  “Dear PayPal Member”.

PayPal is familiar with this type of scam, and has issued the following warning:

“PayPal will never send an email with the greeting “Dear PayPal User” or “Dear PayPal Member.” Real PayPal emails will address you by your first and last name or the business name associated with your PayPal account. If you believe you have received a fraudulent email, please forward the entire email—including the header information – to spoof@paypal.com”.

Be kind to your friends, relatives, and associates who are new computer users and let them know about this type of scam. In that way, it raises the level of security for all of us.

Advise them to:

Consider every email, telephone call, or text message requesting confirmation of personal and financial information as a scam.

Not open emails that come from un-trusted sources.

Not run files received via email, without making sure of their origin.

Not click links in emails. If they come from a known source, to type them on the browser’s address bar. If they come from an un-trusted source, to simply ignore them, as they could redirect to a web site designed to download malware.

Keep their computer protected by installing a security solution and keeping it up-to-date.

Report suspicious e-mails as Spam.

To see how cyber criminals target new users, and new email accounts read “Email Spammers Are Smarter Than You Think”, on this site.

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Gmail Customer Care is Gonna Close You Account – Not!

The old “we’re going to close your email account” scam is making a reappearance. This scam has been around for years, and every so often it makes its way back.

This occasional reappearance tells me one thing – this scam pays off for the cyber criminals who are behind it. Since new users are continuously signing on to the Internet, they are essentially a new crop of potential victims.

What could be better for scammers than this; a natural market for fraudulent emails – new, and unaware users. Staying safe on the Internet is definitely one area where experience counts.

According to a recent email, sent to my relatively new Gmail account, my G mail account (these guys can’t spell – it’s Gmail not G mail), will be deleted within 24 hours unless I verify my user name, password, date of birth, and country information.

To an inexperienced user, this could look like an official email, and the enclosed link makes it simple to get this problem solved with just a mouse click. What could be easier than that?

Clicking on the link would have redirected me to a spoof page, comparable to the original site, and I would then have begun the process whereby the scammers would have stripped me of all the confidential information I was willing to provide.

If you have received the following email recently, I trust you recognized it for what it is, and after reporting it as Spam, you simply deleted it.

If your email account is not relatively new, it’s unlikely you received this email but reading it can still be instructive. BTW, all of the spelling mistakes are the spammers.

“This Email is from G mail customer care and we are sending it to every G mail accounts owner for safety. We are having congestion due to the anonymous registration of G mail accounts so we are shutting down some G mail accounts and your account was among those to be deleted. We are sending this email to you so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account. If you are still interested please confirm your account by filling the space below.Your User name, password, date of birth and your country information would be needed to verify your account.

Due to the congestion in all G mail users and removal of all unused G mail Accounts. G mail would be shutting down all unused Accounts, you will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Lo gin Information below after clicking the reply button or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons.

* User name: …

* Password: ……

* Date of Birth: …….

* Country Or Territory: …..

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within Seven days of receivinga this warning will lose his or her account permanently.

Thank you for using G mail !”

Be kind to your friends, relatives, and associates who are new computer users and let them know about this type of scam. In that way, it raises the level of security for all of us.

Advise them to:

Consider every email, telephone call, or text message requesting confirmation of personal and financial information as a scam.

Not open emails that come from un-trusted sources.

Not run files received via email, without making sure of their origin.

Not click links in emails. If they come from a known source, to type them on the browser’s address bar. If they come from an un-trusted source, to simply ignore them, as they could redirect to a web site designed to download malware.

Keep their computer protected by installing a security solution and keeping it up-to-date.

Report suspicious e-mails as Spam.

To see how cyber criminals target new users, and new email accounts read “Email Spammers Are Smarter Than You Think”, on this site.

If you enjoyed this article, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Hotmail Account Phishing Warning – Again!

If you were to Google “Hotmail scam”, you might be surprised to learn that these scams go all the way back to December, 1997 – at least that was the earliest one I could find. Not surprisingly, the hackers/scammers are at it again. Well why not? Hotmail account users’ are such an easy target.

The most recent email scam, currently in circulation, which appears to come from the Hotmail Customer Care team, is in reality just a poor attempt at a phishing con. This is not the first time we’ve seen this – the last time we saw this one was in August, 2008.

If you’re unfamiliar with phishing, it is defined as the act of tricking unsuspecting Internet users into revealing sensitive or private information. In a phishing attack, the attacker creates a set of circumstances where the potential victims are convinced that they are dealing with an authorized party, in this case Hotmail’s Customer Care team.

The newer email (as opposed to the older one pictured above), states in part: “We are having congestions due to the anonymous registration of Hotmail accounts so we are shutting down some Hotmail accounts and yours was among those to be deleted – We are sending you this email to (sic) so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account”

The email goes on to request that the recipient provide Username, Password, Date of Birth, and Country. It seems to me that Hotmail would already have at least 2 pieces of this information already – user name and password.

Like so many scam emails like it, this one contains the usual spelling and grammatical errors, which should act as a tip-off that the recipient is looking at a fraudulent email.

Unfortunately, the old expression “I learn the hard way every time”, will come into play here with enough recipients falling for it, to make this scam profitable for the cyber-criminals behind it.

Advice that’s worth repeating:

Consider every email, telephone call, or text message, requesting personal information of any kind, as a scam

Never, ever, ever, click on embedded email links