blog PAK CIPAN

I got an email from David Schwartz about fraud warning. Thanks David and you can visit David at http://blog.thetoolwiz.com :

Two or three weeks back, a fellow IMer, David Cavanagh reported that his Google GMail account got hacked somehow and taken over by someone who went through the emails and changed the logins for a bunch of his other accounts, and generally caused a TON of damage. He said that Google wasn't very helpful in the matter.

Well, I've just come across a GMail vulnerability alert that everybody with a
GMail account needs to read: http://www.thetoolwiz.com/HotPicks/GMailHacked2

It seems Google has now discovered a way that people can take over your GMail account without your knowledge or permission just by you visiting a web site with a tiny bit of javascript that's run inside your browser while you're logged into your GMail account.

The Good News is they've fixed this little vulnerability. But ... it does nothing if
someone as already gotten into your account this way!

Apparently, they don't think it's important enough to bother telling their users,
either. Did you get an email from them about this? I sure didn't!

In short, get into your GMail account RIGHT NOW and check your SETTINGS | FILTERS and see if there are any there that you don't recognize. If so, delete them and change your password IMMEDIATELY!

As a general rule, I never forward stuff to my friends, and I don't normally advise it either. But in this particular case, it might be a good idea if you DO FORWARD THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS.

It's a simple thing for Google to send out an alert to their customers. But like many big companies, they hate calling attention to their own shortcomings. And besides, there's probably something buried in their Terms Of Service that say they're not responsible for monitoring or even informing you of problems in their system they may have created.

On another fraud-related topic, I strongly encourage you to examine your credit and debit card accounts for charges from either of these two vendors:
-----------------------
Merchant: TM NETGAMES SAN FRANCISCO CA
Purchase Date: Sep. 17, 2007
Authorized Amount: -$16.94 USD
Authorization Date: Sep. 17, 2007
Time: 07:27:31 PDT
-----------------------
Merchant: MTC TOUCH Beirut LB
Purchase Date: Sep. 17, 2007
Authorized Amount: -$41.69 USD
Authorization Date: Sep. 17, 2007
Time: 07:33:23 PDT
-----------------------

These are from my PayPal Debit Card account, and they showed up without my knowledge or authorization. I posted something in a forum, and since then nearly a dozen other people have reported almost identical transactions in one of their accounts. The common denominators thus far are:

* PayPal Debit cards or virtual cards
* WaMu Debit Cards
* people with accounts at RegisterFly and/or GoDaddy
* people who've used a wireless connection to purchase something recently, particularly in or around certain hotels, including wireless access at hotels

If you find one of these charges on any account, dispute it immediately with your card service provider.

Note that the amounts being charged to TM NETGAMES have varied from $13 to $19, while the ones to MTC TOUCH have all been right around $41.