Funny/Food for Thought

From time to time I like to see what sort of things people are searching for when they hit FraudBlog.net.

Google Analytics and other software help to disect the traffic flowing to a website or the traffic associate with an RSS feed, a particular link, or someone's Twitter account.

Of course, gaining insight into the users of a particular website is useful on many levels whether one is advertising a product, selling a service or simply posting to a blog.

Sometimes the search terms are a little weird, like how to get ransom money to a bank account and some are just plain funny.

With the recent news about a Canadian left in Kenya due to an unfortunate passport picture, I thought the following sequential list of search terms might shed some light on the frequency of passport falsification.

First search term:
"under uv light fake passport"
Ok, seems cool. Someone's trying to research the security features in a passport.

Next search term:
"what if i got caught using a borrowed passport"
Hmmm, maybe not so cool? I like the use of the term 'borrowed', very diplomatic :)

Next:
"no way to get fake passports"
I would disagree with this one. For more on this, see my post about a passport maker in Peel.

Next:
"how i can travel to canada with fake passport"
Evidently, someone found a 'novelty' passport on the web.

Next:
"sell fake passport in toronto"
Hey, wait a sec! Someone's trying to specialize in buying AND selling!

Next:
"canadian passport seized by police how to get back?"
Heh, sucker!

Technorati Tags: Canada Fake Passports Funny/Food for Thought

Fraudtsers wait for this.

Like ambulance chasers, fraudsters aiming to profit from charitable donations or from pushing viruses onto other computers wait for epidemics like the recent swine flu outbreak.

How do they do it?

Aside from feeding off of the panic that these situations bring about, cyberopportunists react ahead of the curve to the change in people's web surfing habits. Fraudsters include catchy phrases in their virus-laden e-mails associating the epidemic with someone or something people are familiar with (false subject headlines such as "Selma Hayek has the swine flu!") and improve their own websites using SEO (search engine optimization) techniques to draw people searching for info on the epidemic to their malicious webpages.

In much the same way that fraudsters jump quickly to profit from this usually short-lived panic, internet security companies are quick on their trail, taking websites offline and creating updates for anti-virus software.

Swine flu cases cause outbreak of fraud on internet
SCMagazineUS.com - Monday, April 27, 2009

Cyberopportunists are trying to cash in on the swine flu outbreak by launching spam attacks and registering URLs that reference the hot news story.

Security firm McAfee said Monday that about two percent of all spam now contains the words "swine" and "flu," while competitor F-Secure reported that at least 146 domains containing references to the outbreak were registered over the weekend.

"We absolutely saw this one coming," Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications at McAfee Avert Labs, told SCMagazineUS.com on Monday.

Neither the emails nor the websites appear to be foisting malware, but a majority are linking to pharmaceutical websites, Marcus said. Some of the messages are arriving with subject headings such as "Salama Hayek caught swine flu!" to entice users to read them.
[...]
Continue to the rest of the SC Magazine article.

Technorati Tags: Fraud Prevention Funny/Food for Thought

The age old dilemma... To side with the ninjas? Or with the pirates?

Personally, there's something about the ninja that I find appealing. But after having grown up on the water, there's a certain nostalgic element in pirates that interests me.

Captain Hook types need not apply

No longer limited to searching for mermaids and gold doubloon, pirates today seek hefty ransoms (often in the millions), help to launder money and are tied into the criminal underworld on many levels.

Baldwin Kramer's blog on financial crime posted several useful links as well as an article describing the types of ransoms, how pirates and hawala networks go hand in hand, and a general overview of the flow of cash involved in high seas piracy.

Check out Baldwin's blog and see the abbreviated post below.

Pirates
BLOGSPOT.COM - Thursday, December 4, 2008
Good ol' Pirates were in it for gold, women and rum. Nowadays they seem to settle for cash. Is it? How does that work... pirates hijacking a vessel and demanding a ransom. The vessels' owner jumps in a helicopter and drops a suitcase loaded with dollars on deck?
[...]
According to experts, the typical pirate ransom is being paid in bags of cash. The bags are handed over to an 'intermediary' on shore, who will pass the bags to the next person in the chain. Hawala type networks come in to play. Some firms have specialized in dealing with all angles of the piracy business.
[..]

Continue to the rest of Baldwin Kramer's post including some useful links.

Technorati Tags: Funny/Food for Thought