Phishing emails are a huge problem and one that numerous attempts to rectify have so far failed to achieve.  Now a large group of tech companies have joined forces with a start-up company called Agari to try and stop phishing emails from even reaching your inbox.  Microsoft, Google, AOL, Yahoo! and other firms have all [...]

Categories: Security

We all know that you can practically buy anything on the Internet, from bulk email accounts over credit card information and even PayPal accounts. Brian Krebs in a post on the Krebs on Security blog sheds some light on the latter. He identified websites were PayPal account data, and sometimes linked email account information, were [...]

Categories: Security, The Web

I never really understood why it was this difficulty to identify the people benefiting from running a botnet. I mean, while it is relatively easy to use chained proxies, middleman and other means to stay anonymous, it is not as easy to anonymize the flow of money. Eventually, the money will land at the people [...]

Categories: Security, The Web

When I was working in tech support for a large German financial corporation I regularly had to deal with support requests by customers who received phishing emails. It took a lot to convince the majority of customers that those phishing emails were not sent by the company, but by criminals. Especially fake email addresses were [...]

Categories: Email, Google

Once a week or so I receive an email from the payment processing service PayPal that notifies me that my PayPal account has been temporarily limited. When I received such a message for the first time, I went all panic for a moment thinking that PayPal – once again – would have screwed me over. [...]

Categories: Advice

It is common knowledge that a website, such as PayPal or eBay, will never ask for your password. They do not need it, but rarely do we hear about why that is the case. There are actually a few possibilities. Please note, if you ever get an e-mail requesting your username and password, it is [...]

Categories: Security, Tutorials Basic

I have a lot of domains. Well, a lot is relative but it is enough to lose the overview occasionally. While the majority is hosted at one popular provider (Godaddy), some are hosted at other domain registrars and web hosting companies. I get regular automated emails from those companies. They tell me that a domain [...]

Categories: Security, Web Development

Phishing is still one of the common threats on today’s Internet. Criminals try to get account information and other personal information from users by faking emails and websites of trusted services, websites and authorities. Phishing is very common in the financial sector and PayPal is by far the service with the largest amount of phishing [...]

Categories: Security, The Web

The Internet Fraud Alert System is a partnership between Microsoft and the US National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA) backed up by organizations and companies like Accuity, American Bankers Association, the Anti-Phishing Working Group, eBay and PayPal. The system addresses a problem that security researchers and companies have faced in the past. Security researchers [...]

Categories: Microsoft, Security, The Web