Security Alerts
Last Updated: 05/28/2013
Beware of Fraudulent Charities - 05/28/2013
Some charities focus on temporary shelter and some concentrate on providing food and water; others specialize in simply raising money for other charities. The Oklahoma Attorney General's Office is now warning of renewed charity scams following the tornado so before giving money to help with the recent tornado disaster relief, it would be wise to verify the type of help the charity is providing to ensure the charity is legitimate.The same increase in fraudulent charities happened within days of the Boston marathon bombings. More than 100 new websites were registered as charities and many were scams. After the grade school shootings in Newton, Connecticut, someone even set up a fake "Funeral Fund" page on Facebook.
To locate a trusted charity, an individual could use an independent charity evaluator such as "Charity Navigator" as a starting point to learn how a particular charity's donations are spent. Charity Navigator shows how much of a donation is applied to the charity program as well as the amount applied to administration and marketing. The Charity Navigator website currently lists more than a dozen trusted charities taking donations for Oklahoma tornado relief, including the American Red Cross.
Keep in mind that donations to certain national charities such as the Red Cross are directed to overall disaster relief wherever assistance is most needed unless a particular disaster is specified. The Red Cross states if donations received have exceeded the amount needed for a specific disaster, the additional donations received and designated for that disaster may be used for other relief efforts. One method of donating to the Red Cross to ensure the donation stays local is to donate to a specific Red Cross Chapter; local donations such as these will be applied in that locale.
"Wire Transfer Canceled" Malware Attack - 05/06/2013
If you've received an email in your inbox telling you that your wire transfer has been cancelled, take care - as it's the latest attempt by online criminals to infect the general public's Windows computers.The e-mail text reads as follows:
Attached to the emails is a file called PAYMENT RECEIPT 30-04-2013-GBK-75.zip which Sophos products detect as containing the Troj/Zbot-EVX Trojan horse, designed to hijack your computer and - potentially - plunder your finances and steal private information.
Of course, the danger is that unsuspecting computer users will open the malicious email attachment even if they haven't recently tried to wire some cash.
The social engineering trap used in this attack takes advantage of people's natural curiousity, which - in many cases - will drive them to investigate the file even if alarm bells should be ringing.
Up-to-date anti-virus software and software patches can help protect your computer, but the real lesson that internet users need to learn is to not be so trusting of unsolicited emails that arrive out of the blue in their inbox.
(See http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/04/30/wire-transfer-canceled-malware-attack/)
Text Phishing Scam - 04/26/2013
Fraudsters are texting credit union members with a message that their payment card has been frozen. A BIN number followed by "XXXX" is being used to portray the message as an official looking communication containing a truncated payment card number.Members are being directed to call the number listed in the text if they wish to unfreeze their payment card. The authorities have been notified of this scam but the number could still be live and represents considerable risk to consumers.
If you receive a similar text message DO NOT RESPOND! And remember, we will never ask for your personal information via text message.
If you believe you have been victimized by this or another scam, please contact us immediately.
New "FBI Cybersecurity" Virus - 02/21/2013
There is a relatively new virus that is being referred to as the "FBI Cybersecurity" virus, which manifests in any one of about a dozen forms but the net effect is this:- You get a popup window that will most likely dominate the screen and not allow navigation to other areas of the computer.
- The screen claims to be from several Federal Institutions--primarily the FBI--but also including the U.S. Department of Defense and so on claiming a laundry list of offenses, such as; you have violated a copyright law or are using counterfeit software and informing you that you must pay $300-$500 within a certain timeframe through "Moneypak" (It’s also being referred to as the Moneypak virus).
- It goes on to claim that if you don’t pay within a certain timeframe that the fine will increase and include jail time etc...
It’s a very scary looking window and tends to get people pretty worked up. It pulls information based on your IP address and your location and can even include info on which ISP you are using. (Comcast etc....)
This is a scam which is attempting to get your personal information and credit card info. It is propagated through unsecure rolling ad banners that have been hacked, even on legitimate websites.
If this windows pops up, do NOT respond to it, do not click on it. Kill the process if you know how. Then contact a reputable resource to clean the virus. If you know someone that is somewhat computer savvy, a System Restore to a point in time before the infection followed by a scan with an antivirus program seems to be effective.
These types of virus infections propagated in this manner are difficult to avoid because they approach YOU and you interact with the window, thus installing the software. However, using a good updated web browser such as Firefox or Google Chrome that integrates an "Ad-Block" add-on can be very effective in stopping these windows from popping up.
Please remember that National JACL Credit Union will never ask you for personal information, or information about your credit union accounts via e-mail, a web page, or over the phone.
