Consumers and Email – Page 6

Malicious Software Features Usama bin Laden Links to Ensnare Unsuspecting Computer Users

The FBI today (May 3, 2011) issued a warning about emails that feature Usama bin Laden photos or videos but which actually contain malware that will infect your computer. The FBI warns that viruses are often programmed to steal your personally identifiable information. The FBI offers this advice: Adjust the privacy settings on social networking sites you frequent to make it more difficult for people you know and do not know to post content to your page. Even a “friend” can unknowingly pass on multimedia that’s actually malicious software. Do not agree to download software to view videos. These applications [...]

iconixtruemark2017-01-07T17:35:28-05:00May 3rd, 2011|Consumers and Email, Phishing|

Epsilon Data Loss — Update

threatpost, the Kaspersky Lab Security News Service, has provided an updated list of the companies that have been affected by the Epsilon data breach: 1-800-FLOWERS AbeBooks Air Miles (Canada) Ameriprise Financial Ann Taylor credit card (provided by WFNNB) Barclay's Bank of Delaware (this breach affects customers of several private-label Visa credit cards, including BJ's and L.L. Bean) Beachbody Bebe Stores Best Buy Benefit Cosmetics Brookstone Capital One Chase Citigroup City Market College Board Crucial Dell Dillons Disney Destinations Eddie Bauer Eileen Fisher Ethan Allen Eurosport (Soccer.com) Food 4 Less Fred Meyer Fry's Electronics Hilton Honors program Home Depot [...]

iconixtruemark2017-01-07T17:35:28-05:00April 19th, 2011|Consumers and Email, Phishing, SP Guard, spear phishing|

Spear-Phishing. Coming Now To Consumers!

Epsilon’s recent loss of email data to hackers has brought new attention to the problem of spear-phishing. What is spear-phishing? In order to answer that question, you need to know what phishing is. Phishing is email that is designed to appeal to the recipients’ desires, fears and curiosity to get the recipients to act to the recipients’ detriment. Typically, that action is to click a link that goes to a fake website that asks for information in order to commit identity theft. Sometimes these emails are very ineffective to the point of being funny. We are all familiar with the [...]

iconixtruemark2017-01-07T17:35:28-05:00April 8th, 2011|Consumers and Email, Iconix Truemark Service, Phishing, SP Guard|

Epsilon Compromised by Spear-Phishing. Bad Guys Get Email Addresses.

On April Fools’ Day, early reports circulated that Epsilon, the large email service company, had lost email addresses of many of its prominent customers. This turns out NOT to be an April Fools’ joke – the names and email addresses used by Epsilon’s customers had, in fact, been compromised. Reuters reports that email lists used by CitiBank, Walgreens and Best Buy had all been compromised. In fact, as reported by SecurityWeek, dozens of brands were impacted, including JPMorgan Chase, US Bank, Target, Home Shopping Network, The College Board, and Marriott Rewards. How could this happen? Epsilon was the victim of a [...]

iconixtruemark2017-01-07T17:35:28-05:00April 5th, 2011|Consumers and Email, Iconix Truemark Service, Phishing|

IRS Warnings – Tax Tip 2011-58

It is tax time again in the USA. And that is the time for fake emails that pretend to be from the IRS. In its recent Tax Tip 2011-58, the IRS advised: Identity Theft: It pays to be choosy when it comes to disclosing personal information. Identity thieves have used stolen personal data to access financial accounts, run up charges on credit cards and apply for new loans. The IRS is aware of several identity theft scams involving taxes or scammers posing as the IRS itself. The IRS does not use e-mail to contact taxpayers about issues related to their [...]

iconixtruemark2017-01-07T17:35:28-05:00March 29th, 2011|Consumers and Email, Iconix Truemark Service, Phishing|

Consumers More Engaged With Email

According to recent research published by Forrester Research, “Consumer Email Attitudes Improve.”, consumers are more engaged with email. Forrester compared research conducted since 2006 that showed these very important consumer shifts in email attitudes: Consumers forward promotional email more often: In 2010, 12% of consumers say they sometimes forward promotional email to others, up from the 10% in 2008, and 9% in 2006. Fewer messages deleted without reading: In 2010, 59% of consumers said they delete most email messages without reading them, down from the 63% in 2008 and the 73% in 2006. Integrate email promotions and personal email: Only [...]

iconixtruemark2017-01-07T17:35:28-05:00March 11th, 2011|Consumers and Email, Email Marketing, Iconix Truemark Service|

Trend Micro Video Contest

Trend Micro, the has announced an online video contest. The "What's Your Story?" contest seeks short videos about internet safety.

iconixtruemark2013-08-16T20:29:17-04:00March 11th, 2011|Consumers and Email|

Iconix Whitepaper – Getting More From Email Authentication

Today Iconix released a whitepaper entitled, “Getting More From Email Authentication.” As the whitepaper describes, Email authentication is a technical means of identifying the sender of email. When a sender uses email authentication, a public record is created that that can be used by the recipient to verify the identity of the sender. However, email authentication is a self-issued credential. The owner of phishing.com can authenticate its email. Email authentication alone does not solve the problem of bad guys pretending to be good guys. Email authentication is used by email filtering systems as an important spam indicator. Unauthenticated email is [...]

iconixtruemark2017-01-07T17:35:28-05:00March 7th, 2011|Consumers and Email, Email Authentication, Email Marketing, Iconix Truemark Service|

eMail ID – eMail Made Better

I get non-personal emails because I want to get them. I sign up for newsletters and coupons; I buy stuff and get the receipt and shipping data. My inbox is full of stuff I signed up for. When I find an email from a sender that interests me, I want it to be from that sender. This is my inbox this morning: What do I care about? After I read all this stuff, I see an email from the President, 50% off at eBay and PayPal approved me for something. Here’s what my inbox looks like with eMail ID: [...]

iconixtruemark2017-01-07T17:35:28-05:00February 28th, 2011|Consumers and Email, Iconix Truemark Service|

Phishing – The New Spying

You may remember reports of a spies infiltrating U.S. government computers using phishing email pretending to be from President Obama. The U.S. is not alone in suffering from these high-tech espionage methods. Reports out of Canada tell of another carefully crafted phishing scheme which compromised Canadian government computers. The attack, which appeared to originate from China, involved the hackers posing as senior bureaucrats sending email to technical staffers. The technical staffers were fooled into giving the fake officials key passwords, thereby allowing unauthorized network access. At the same time, the bad guys sent other staffers emails with seemingly innocuous attachments; [...]

iconixtruemark2017-01-07T17:35:28-05:00February 19th, 2011|Consumers and Email, Iconix Truemark Service, Phishing|