Another Phishing Scam Using PayPal Service

An anti-spam researcher has revealed a phishing sting, which compromises computers of a 'medical transcription outsourcing' firm and Malaysian government to dispatch fraudulent e-mails. The discoverer of the scam is an engineer from San Diego, Bill Carton, who spent the past decade working voluntarily as an anti-spam activist. In his free time, he has been dealing with mass e-mailers. During this job, he got an e-mail that intended to be from PayPal service of eBay Inc.

The e-mail had a typical phishing text. It said that the service has noticed that the account information of recipient needs updating. The recipient is requested to take 5to 10 minutes off his/ her online surfing to update the personal records so that the addressee does not face any problem in future with his/her online service.

Carton found it unusual that the link given in the mail led to a phony PayPal Website posted 'gov.my' domain of Malaysian government by servers. This was exciting according to the Malaysian point of view, which initially bypassed Carton's attention. However, closer investigation showed that there was another trusted source of computers, which was employed to circulate the phishing mails.

Carton pointed that the hacked e-mail server used as medium to deliver the spam mails and wipe out any proof of the spammer's place of activity was not the standard home cable conducting a 'zombie' infection but 'RxDocuments.com'. The latter claim to have HIPAA-amenable software that maintains privacy, but the computer with the same software relayed the spam.

, 'Computer Cops LLC' owner and leader of 'Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination Squad', Paul Laudanski, assessed the phishing mail and he too said that 'RxDocuments' relayed it. As per LLC's Website, 'RxDocuments' make 'dictation transcription services' available for medical practitioners. It claims its products to be 'cost-effective', 'secure transcription' featured with the premier professional, legal and ethical standards.

As criminals begin to realize that there can be real money reaped from online fraud they are becoming more and more sophisticated. According to estimates of Gartner Inc, a research company in U.S., consumers are heading to lose $2.8 billion in 2006 because of phishing.

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» SPAMfighter News - 11/29/2006