An Internet Marketing Tutorial for the rest of us

Spyware Perpetrators Nabbed
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Spyware, spam, and phishing is truly a global problem. Atsushi Takewaka, 31, and Kiichi Hirayama, 41, are accused of stealing Internet bank account passwords. They then used these passwords to take money from online bank accounts.



The pair took the banking password of a jewelry store in Kawasaki. They stole Y 216,000 ($1,865) from the account. Police report they had other illegal activities wherein they acquired Y11 million from nine other accounts at Japan Net Bank, Mizuho Bank and eBank Corp during the summer.



According to the police report, Takewaka said, "I created the spyware in about three months using a range of software. I wanted money to live." Hirayama admitted that he sent CD ROMs to companies that, when run on a PC, installs spyware and steals banking information. The duo stole around Y3 million ($25,904) in this way.



"Spyware which steals Internet banking customers is on the increase, so it's essential that everyone ensures they have proper protection in place," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "It's encouraging to see computer crime fighters around the world having more success in catching the perpetrators, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. Everyone needs up-to-date anti-virus protection, firewalls and security patches, and ensure they are acting securely when online."


Quotes taken from Security Pro News.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Update on Bots
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Here's an update on the bot problem alluded to in a previous post. The number of dangerous bots on the internet increased more than 175 per cent between 2004 and 2005, with more than 10,000 cases of the malware documented by PandaLabs.



Bots are called thus because they can infect your computer and live there without your knowledge. The bots then wait for commands. PandaLabs belives that these bots are now created professionally, in order to secure financial returns for their creators. The results are a great diversity of bots and similar malware programs that are becoming increasingly difficult for protection systems to cope with.



The worst threst from bots comes when they are organized into networks, or botnets, to collectively distribute spam or other malware. As mentioned previously, these botnets are sometimes sold to spammers and blackmailers.



"Botnets are one of the current business tools of cybercrime", said Luis Corrons, director of PandaLabs. "The biggest danger lies in their secrecy: a large company could be serving the interests of a group of malware creators without realising it. Their computers could be at the disposal of these cyber-crooks, and the legal implications that they might create for the company itself."



Information from
Vnu-Net was used in preparing this report.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Stopbadware.com
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Harvard and Oxford have launched www.stopbadware.com. According to their website, they are organized by Harvard's Berkman Center, Oxford's Internet Institute, and Consumer Web Watch. Their sponsors include Google, Lenovo, and Sun Microsystems.



The initiative is like a "Neighborhood Watch" program for the WWW, seeking to fight badware. Badware are programs that automatically install themselves on your computer without your consent and/or knowledge.



They want to provide objective information on badware and its perpetrators. They also desire to "become a focal point for developing collaborative, community-minded approaches to stopping badware".



The International Herald Tribune indicates such an initiative is necessary because the "spread of noxious code and the ease with which it can be deposited on unsuspecting users' machines has generally outpaced the ability of legislative and regulatory measures to grapple with the problem."

John Stith states the program will work like this:

? You can visit StopBadware.org to see whether programs you want to download have badware and tell others about programs you have come across that include spyware, non-stop pop-ups or other obtrusive programs.

? StopBadware.org will publish short user friendly reports on badware downloads.

? StopBadware.org will list the names of companies that use badware and show how they make money through unethical marketing practices.

? StopBadware.org will get your badware horror stories and publish these stories to raise awareness of badware's affects.

CIAO for now,
Randy

The New Prayer Room
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Wedding
For our Christian readers, we want to announce our new prayer room! Please feel free to post your prayers and petitions so our global prayer team can join you in making your requests known to God. We also have a Gospel store with quality Christian items at reasonable prices. Proceeds benefit global missions.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Death of a Zombie Network
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Dum - dum - dum - dum - another hacker bites the dust! This certainly seems to be the week for catching and convicting hackers and phishers. First there was the Bulgarian bust and now, in California, 20-year-old hacker Jeanson James Ancheta, has pleaded guilty to a variety of crimes. He will probably be most infamously known for 2 hacks of the US military. He earned about $61,000 from his illegal actions.



He faces 6 years in prison, plus he has to pay the federal governement restitution and return his profits and a 1993 BMW.



The "Zombie Network" he used was a number of Windows machines controlled remotely, without the owners' knowledge or, most likely, consent. Ancheta used these computers to distribute pop-up ads and sold the ads to others.



We advise you to never ever join a "peer network," no matter how attractive the returns might sound. It's just an invite for hackers to come a'knockin.' Go ahead and get some quality anti-virus/anti-spyware such as we regularly showcase here.



CIAO for now,
Randy


Information from SecurityProNews was used for this report.

Bulgarian Phishing Coup!
Mood:  loud
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Bulgaria, a small European country about the size of Tennessee and bordering Greece and Turkey, scored a major coup against phishing. A crime ring of 8 people who operated an international phishing ring was broken up this week.



The group sent out phony emails that looked like they came from Microsoft customer service reps. They called themselves the MBAM Gang, and created dozens of splogs that looked like official MSN pages, even down to the logo and trademark.



The group launched 46 attacks on 43 servers located in 11 countries, stole personal credit card info, and used the info to make purchases and money transfers of more than $50,000. The credit card owners reside in the USA, Germany, and the UK. John Stith, who supplied much of this information, feels that these 8 were members of a larger group.



What can you do to protect yourself? First off, never click on a link in an email, no matter how official it seems. Second, get a quality anti-spyware/anti-virus program, such as we promote. One that we really like is Proxify.

Proxify.com 6 months subscription - $20.00 Proxify is a web-based anonymous proxy service which allows anyone to surf the Web privately and securely. Unlike other proxies, there is no software to install or complicated instructions to follow. Just visit Proxify.com with your Web browser and enter a URL (website address) in the form provided. Through Proxify, you can use websites but they cannot uniquely identify or track you. Proxify hides your IP address and our encrypted connection prevents monitoring of your network traffic. Once using Proxify, you can surf normally and forget that it is there, protecting you.

Proxify is a really good way to make sure no one gets your personal info.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Note: Information from SecurityProNews was used in this report.

Tags: Bulgaria, phishing, internet security, Microsoft

The Latest Google News
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
David Utter, of WebProNews, reported on the recently released November 2005 figures on search share from Nielsen/Netratings. Almost 3/4 of all searches pass through Yahoo or Google. See earlier postings and the podcast for information on how to add your blog or website to these powerful search engines. If you would like a say in Nielsen/Netratings, click the link below to join as a member.



Google accounted for 46 percent of searches, or about 2.4 billion queries. Yahoo had 23 percent of searches, or about 1.2 billion queries. MSN had 11 percent (583 million searches) and AOL had about 7 percent (350 million searches).

Free $10.00 Wal-Mart Gift Certificate!
No Shipping Charge - No Credit Card Required
Absolutely FREE!

What these figures tell us is which search engines you need to focus your efforts on. It may be easy to get listed on a minor search engine that we have not listed here, but, then again, you will likely see little traffic also. Utilize the methods we have discussed in prior posts (e.g., the blog and ping method, updating frequently with quality content, etc.) to get your site listed in the top four and watch your traffic soar!



CIAO for now,
Randy

Who's Afraid of Virginia Splog?
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Well, you should be for one! Along with the nefarious tricks posed by phishers, scammers, ID thieves and the like, are the sploggers. According to Wikipedia, splogs are blogs where the articles are spam, and does not include random comments on the blogs of innocent bystanders. Sheila Coggins says that the term is short for "spam weblogs," and splogs are used as a deceptive way of boosting search engine ratings for a particular site. Splogs ruin search engine results, and are frequently used in phishing schemes. On the brighter side, no need to panic, states CJ of Upforanything.net, because most splogs "are just banner farms that steal RSS feeds and plaster the pages with ad content. Fortunately, they aren't very successful and rarely manage much of a google ranking" (Dean's World, 10/31/2005).



What can you do if you've been splogged and how can you stop it? Nicole Lee, of Wired News, has three very good suggestions. First, find out if your blog is getting ripped off by subscribing to news feeds at search engines like Technorati. Use search terms like your name or url. A splog will have a high number of buzzwords in the main content area, as well as a redirect to another site. When we did that for this blog, we were pleasantly surprised to see what Tino Buntic had to say about us in his Sales Leads and Business Marketing blog. Nothing, however, was listed to indicate this blog has been splogged.



The second thing Ms. Lee suggests you do is report the splog. If it's hosted by Blogger, report the splog by clicking the Flag button in the top right corner. Furthermore, if the site has Google ads on it, report it to Google's Adsense program.



The last main point of Ms. Lee's we want to focus on is to be vocal about combatting splogs. "Demand accountability and diligence from hosting providers, and demand additional barriers in the blog-creation process," she says, and it appears Google is beginning to listen.



Some sites suggest reporting splogs to splogreporter.com or splogspot.com. We're not certain how effective these sites are or could be, especially since there has been no activity listed on either for almost a month. That's why we did not include an active link for either. Besides, we prefer the direct approach.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Fragile Bob & How to Build Organic Links
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
The other night, I was surfing on Blog Exp;losion, when I came across Fragile Bob's blog. Well, not only is Fragile Bob hilarious & better-looking than Sawyer from Lost, but he's also the spitting image of yours truly. We could pass for twins, tho I think HE's the evil one!



So, naturally, I had to post a comment. His blof allowed me to list my web page (even tho it is moderated), and, in addition, Fragile Bob emailed me, asking for my picture for him to compare + post on his blog. Last I checked, he hadn't yet, but this whole process illustrates how to build organic links.



Namely, organic means "natural." You don't want to link to just any old site to try to boost your rankings in the search engines. [Search engines frequently look at how many sites link to you.] Likewise, you don't want to comment on just any old blog to get a link there.



Comments should be substantive and add something to internet discourse; i.e., more than "Nice blog!" If done correctly, as illustrated herein with Fragile Bob's blog, organic linking leads to a conversation and 2-way links, which benefits both An Internet Marketing Tutorial for the rest of us and Fragile Bob!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Applephishing
Mood:  accident prone
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Applephishing is a term we've coined to describe the latest in internet fraud and phishing, mostly because it's directed at Apple users. John Leyden reports on this latest scam in The Register.



Apple users are receiving bogus emails with a twist. Usually the bogus emails claim to be from online banks and attempt to pursuade a small per cent of the recipients, who are actually bank customers, into visiting a fake site and submitting account information.



The twist in "Applephishing" is that these latest scam emails target Apple IDs, which the phishers can use to access the victim's iTunes Music Store or AppleStore account, perhaps even using the info to purchase computers and other high-end merchandise under a covert ID.



"Applephishing" is just another example of how prevalent internet fraud has become and how sophisticated the tactics can be. Phishers are even beginning to send out targeted emails. The bottom line? Be careful and don't fall for any traps. If you receive a "security check" email from what appears to be a reputable source, contact the source either via phone or type their web address in the address bar, rather than clicking the email link.


CIAO for now,
Randy


Tags: Apple, Phishing, Spam
, Blog, scam, itunes, Apple Store