Phishing fraud question

Quentin Campbell Q.G.Campbell at NEWCASTLE.AC.UK
Thu Oct 14 10:17:39 IST 2004


Julian

Thanks for that. I saw the warnings in BOLD BLUE rather than RED.

Are there situations where the recipients mailer will not render HTML in
messages? If so you may need some plain text border characters around
the inserted warning to make it stand out.
 
Quentin
---
PHONE: +44 191 222 8209    Information Systems and Services (ISS),
                           University of Newcastle,
                           Newcastle upon Tyne,
FAX:   +44 191 222 8765    United Kingdom, NE1 7RU.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Any opinion expressed above is mine. The University can get its own." 

 


________________________________

        From: MailScanner mailing list
[mailto:MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Julian Field
        Sent: 14 October 2004 10:00
        To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
        Subject: Re: Phishing fraud question
	
	
        Here's an excerpt from an abbey national phishing scam.
	
	
	
        To log into your account, please visit the online banking
        MailScanner
        has detected a possible fraud attempt from
        http://200.153.201.119:16780/ <http://200.153.201.119:16780/> 
        http://www.abbey.com <http://200.153.201.119:16780/> 
	
        If you have questions about your online statement,
        please send us a Bank Mail or call us at 1-800-374-9700 
	
	
        And a false positive:
	
	
        since 2001; and Otylia Jedrzejczak of Poland who won a gold
medal in Athens in the 200m butterfly finals and has committed to
auctioning her medal to help raise money for children suffering from
leukemia. The European Heroes were chosen as 'they inspire, create,
devote themselves to others, and even risk their lives...' 
        MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from
http://www.time.com/time/europe/hero2004/mcarthur.html
<http://www.time.com/time/europe/hero2004/mcarthur.html>  www.time.com
	
        <http://www.time.com/time/europe/hero2004/mcarthur.html> <<B&Q>>
UNDERGOES 'ROUND THE WORLD' REFIT...
        Since returning to her French base in Lorient in mid-September,
the 75-foot trimaran 
	
        Sorry for the HTML post, but you need to see it in bold red.
        If you don't like the text/style, feel free to suggest
improvements.
	
        I just think that flagging the false positive as "banned
content" or "dangerous content" is going too far.
	
        At 09:51 14/10/2004, you wrote:
	

                Julian
        	
                To help us give informed feedback can you please put on
this list an
                example "phishing" message [perhaps faked so that
existing rules will
                not tag it!] which has your additional warning text. I
need to see what
                our users would get in order to judge whether it is
enough to alert them
                to the possible danger of the message.
        	
                It would also be helpful if you could include as well an
example false
                positive with enough text lines before and after the
duff link and
                wraning text to give enough context.
        	
                There is a balance to be struck here. The warning text
needs to be
                "intrusive" enough to alert our users, particularly
overseas students,
                of the dangers of a true phishing message.
        	
                On the other hand it will give rise to complaints if it
appears too
                intrusive in the case of false positives.
        	
                Thanks 
        	
                Quentin
                ---
                PHONE: +44 191 222 8209    Information Systems and
Services (ISS),
                                           University of Newcastle,
                                           Newcastle upon Tyne,
                FAX:   +44 191 222 8765    United Kingdom, NE1 7RU.
	
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                "Any opinion expressed above is mine. The University can
get its own."  
        	
                >-----Original Message-----
                >From: MailScanner mailing list 
                >[mailto:MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Julian
Field
                >Sent: 14 October 2004 09:32
                >To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
                >Subject: Phishing fraud question
                >
                >I want your opinion.
                >
                >When things like scripts and forms are detected in
emails, 
                >they are just
                >quietly disarmed without any subject line tagging at
all.
                >
                >Should I do the same with phishing fraud attempts? The
warning in the
                >message will be put in right next to the offending
link.
                >
                >It's just that phishing detection does detect quite a
few 
                >false positives
                >due to the stupidity of a lot of newsletter authors who
put 
                >"fake" links in
                >their material. I don't want people to become used to
seeing 
                >"{Dangerous
                >Content?}" or whatever, and therefore ignoring it.
                >
                >I have tagged the subject line so far, and I think it
is 
                >already starting
                >to cause problems. I am tending towards removing the
subject tag.
                >
                >Any thoughts please?
                >--
                >Julian Field
                >www.MailScanner.info <http://www.mailscanner.info/> 
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        -- 
        Julian Field
        www.MailScanner.info <http://www.mailscanner.info/> 
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