James Titcumb

I guess the more people read about Windows Live messenger scams like the one I’m about to tell you about, the better. People need more awareness about things like this. And it looks like I’m not the only one writing about this particular scam from a (probably fake) company called TST Management Inc.

Basically, someone receives a link from a contact on their Windows Live list. The duped person visits this site (in my case, my Mum and Dad were victims of this phish, and (well, not them) sent me a link to http://r.titcumb.imagefrosty.info/ followed by http://ultraoffers.info/), and enters their Windows Live logon details in the hope of seing some pictures that their friend has sent them. Unfortunately, you probably won’t read the small print:

We may temporarily access your MSN account to do a combination
of the following:
1.  Send Instant Messages to your friends promoting this site.
2.  Introduce new entertaining sites to your friends via Instant Messages.

Basically, what they will do is log onto your Windows Live account (sometimes even when you’re logged on!), send a link (sometimes personalised) to everyone on your contact list. And so the cycle restarts. They also have a nice big list of e-mail addresses that they can now send spam e-mail to, or sell on for lots of money.

There is a simple message that I must say to everyone, even though no-one EVER listens to it, even though they are told umpteen times by everyone who is computer savvy:

DO NOT ENTER YOUR PASSWORD OR PERSONAL DETAILS ON ANY SITE EXCEPT THE ORIGINATING SITE.

i.e. if you signed up for a Windows Live passport, only ever enter your password on sites that end with “live.com”. If you sign up for a Google account, only enter your password on sites ending with “google.com”.

That means don’t enter it on sites like “google.securepeople.com” or “google.email-program.com” or anything.

If in doubt, for heavens sake, ask someone who knows about computers. At the end of the day, it’s the unskilled (or sometimes unobservant) computer users that are fuelling the spam industry. Do your bit to reduce spam. Use some common sense.

Edit 1 - Looking for Encryption Certificates:

Also, websites which ask for your password should always start, in the address bar, with https, the s standing for secure. A valid site wouldn’t ask you for your password unless it was secure.

As Hannah mentioned, you should also look for “https”. These type of sites also have security certificates. You can check these by:

• Internet Explorer 7/8: To the right of the address bar you should see a gold padlock. Click it to see something like “Verisign has identified this site as www.yourwebsite.com. This connection to the server is encrypted”
• Firefox 3: To the left of the address bar, click the site’s Favicon, and you should see the certificate information there.

An example of Google’s login screen can be seen in each browser here:

Internet Explorer 8

Firefox 3