Issued in public interest
dear friends
Today morning newspapers have reported that the email id of former Union Minister Mani Shankar Iyer was hacked. All his friends in his address book got a mail, purported to have emanated from Iyer stating that he lost his purse at London and seeking immediate help of $3500 to settle his hotel bill and to return to India. The mail also assures the recipient that he would return the money after coming back to India. Mr Iyer has also confirmed that his email has been hacked.
We have also written about this few months back in the group. In almost all such cases, the hackers get the user id and password from the account holder only. The email owner used to get mails in the name of google, yahoo or hotmail, informing that the email would be blocked, unless they share the user id and password through email for verification. Such mails used to come as "customercareservice676@gmail.com " or similar to that. If any account holder believes this bogus mail and submits the user id and pw, it would directly reach the hacker. Immediately within few minutes, the hacker would change the password and start sending appeals to all the addresses in the address book, as mentioned in the opening para.
I am one of the co-founders of Cyber Society of India. To understand this operation, in Jan 2009, when I received such hacked mail appealing for monetary help, i started responding to the hacker (as if i want to help) and exchanged few mails. The hacker, without knowing my intention, wanted me to send the amount to a particular hotel in Gana, Africa. I forwarded the exchange of mails to cyber crime branch for their knowledge also.
Even after our earlier caution, some of our own members have become victims of the email phishing. To avoid such unfortuante happenings, please follow the pre-catuions:
1. Keep your password strong. lower case, upper case, numbers, signs, etc. Do not use your date of birth, close relatives names, vehicle number, etc. in your password.
2. Whenever, you get any mail purported to be from gmail, yahoo, hotmail or any other providers or banks asking for your user id, and password, please ignore. never respond. If you want to login, please go to the genuine URL of the site and then log in. Instead of www.gmail.com or www.yahoo.com, or www.yourbankname.com , if you find ip addresses in the browser like 123.34.56.78 (only for example), please do not enter your id and password.
3. While opening a new email account in gmail, yahoo or hotmail, register an alternate email id with the provider. If you have not already done that earlier, please check now your email settings and register an alternate email id. If you face any unfortunate situation of hacking, you can inform the email provider through 'lost password' link.
4. I find many senior officials, heads of departments or CEOs allow their secretaries to handle their email ids. In reality, many people in the officie use the email ids and know the password of their boss. . Even if one person, responds to such fake mails and submits the id and password, as described above, it would lead to embarassing situation.
Please also caution your friends/colleagues, so that they do not become victims innocently. Never never share your user id and password of email, bank accounts with others.
Srinivasan
Prime Point
94440 50273
dear friends
Today morning newspapers have reported that the email id of former Union Minister Mani Shankar Iyer was hacked. All his friends in his address book got a mail, purported to have emanated from Iyer stating that he lost his purse at London and seeking immediate help of $3500 to settle his hotel bill and to return to India. The mail also assures the recipient that he would return the money after coming back to India. Mr Iyer has also confirmed that his email has been hacked.
We have also written about this few months back in the group. In almost all such cases, the hackers get the user id and password from the account holder only. The email owner used to get mails in the name of google, yahoo or hotmail, informing that the email would be blocked, unless they share the user id and password through email for verification. Such mails used to come as "customercareservice
I am one of the co-founders of Cyber Society of India. To understand this operation, in Jan 2009, when I received such hacked mail appealing for monetary help, i started responding to the hacker (as if i want to help) and exchanged few mails. The hacker, without knowing my intention, wanted me to send the amount to a particular hotel in Gana, Africa. I forwarded the exchange of mails to cyber crime branch for their knowledge also.
Even after our earlier caution, some of our own members have become victims of the email phishing. To avoid such unfortuante happenings, please follow the pre-catuions:
1. Keep your password strong. lower case, upper case, numbers, signs, etc. Do not use your date of birth, close relatives names, vehicle number, etc. in your password.
2. Whenever, you get any mail purported to be from gmail, yahoo, hotmail or any other providers or banks asking for your user id, and password, please ignore. never respond. If you want to login, please go to the genuine URL of the site and then log in. Instead of www.gmail.com or www.yahoo.com, or www.yourbankname.
3. While opening a new email account in gmail, yahoo or hotmail, register an alternate email id with the provider. If you have not already done that earlier, please check now your email settings and register an alternate email id. If you face any unfortunate situation of hacking, you can inform the email provider through 'lost password' link.
4. I find many senior officials, heads of departments or CEOs allow their secretaries to handle their email ids. In reality, many people in the officie use the email ids and know the password of their boss. . Even if one person, responds to such fake mails and submits the id and password, as described above, it would lead to embarassing situation.
Please also caution your friends/colleagues, so that they do not become victims innocently. Never never share your user id and password of email, bank accounts with others.
Srinivasan
Prime Point
94440 50273
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