[TheToolWiz] Two important FRAUD WARNINGS! Please read!
Hello, Toolwiz,
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! NOT A SALES PITCH…
Two or three weeks back, a fellow IMer, David Cavanagh reported that his
Google GMail account got hacked somehow and taken over by someone who
went through the emails and changed the logins for a bunch of his other
accounts, and generally caused a TON of damage. He said that Google wasn’t
very helpful in the matter.
Well, I’ve just come across a GMail vulnerability alert that everybody with a
GMail account needs to read:
http://www.thetoolwiz.com/HotPicks/GMailHacked
It seems Google has now discovered a way that people can take over your
GMail account without your knowledge or permission just by you visiting a web
site with a tiny bit of javascript that’s run inside your browser while you’re
logged into your GMail account.
The Good News is they’ve fixed this little vulnerability. But … it does nothing if someone as already gotten into your account this way!
Apparently, they don’t think it’s important enough to bother telling their users,
either. Did you get an email from them about this? I sure didn’t!
In short, get into your GMail account RIGHT NOW and check your
SETTINGS | FILTERS and see if there are any there that you don’t recognize.
If so, delete them and change your password IMMEDIATELY!
As a general rule, I never forward stuff to my friends, and I don’t normally
advise it either. But in this particular case, it might be a good idea if you
DO FORWARD THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS.
It’s a simple thing for Google to send out an alert to their customers. But
like many big companies, they hate calling attention to their own
shortcomings. And besides, there’s probably something buried in their
Terms Of Service that say they’re not responsible for monitoring or even
informing you of problems in their system they may have created.
On another fraud-related topic, I strongly encourage you to examine your
credit and debit card accounts for charges from either of these two vendors:
———————–
Merchant: TM NETGAMES SAN FRANCISCO CA
Purchase Date: Sep. 17, 2007
Authorized Amount: -$16.94 USD
Authorization Date: Sep. 17, 2007
Time: 07:27:31 PDT
———————–
Merchant: MTC TOUCH Beirut LB
Purchase Date: Sep. 17, 2007
Authorized Amount: -$41.69 USD
Authorization Date: Sep. 17, 2007
Time: 07:33:23 PDT
———————–
These are from my PayPal Debit Card account, and they showed up without
my knowledge or authorization. I posted something in a forum, and since
then nearly a dozen other people have reported almost identical transactions
in one of their accounts. The common denominators thus far are:
* PayPal Debit cards or virtual cards
* WaMu Debit Cards
* people with accounts at RegisterFly and/or GoDaddy
* people who’ve used a wireless connection to purchase something recently,
particularly in or around certain hotels, including wireless access at hotels
If you find one of these charges on any account, dispute it immediately
with your card service provider.
Note that the amounts being charged to TM NETGAMES have varied from
$13 to $19, while the ones to MTC TOUCH have all been right around $41.
Please feel free to post comments to my blog at:
http://blog.thetoolwiz.com
(They’re moderated, but mainly to eliminate the riff-raff.)
-David “TheToolWiz” Schwartz
Monday 01 Oct 2007 | TheToolWiz | General
I recieved a charge on 9/29/07 from MTC Touch Beirut and I as well have a paypal account. The charge was exactly $41.69. WATCH OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My Chase Visa was charged the $41.69 to MTC on 9/30/07. Interestingly, that is the card I have on file with Paypal (and, though it may not be related, I happened to use it to make a Paypal purchase that same day, the first time I had done so in months). I also have a GoDaddy account.