Looks like another new eBay phishing exploit

In addition to the good advice given above, you might want to look at the information provided at http://digitalchoke.com/daynotes/ for additional information on different phishing attacks. Especially look at the phishing attack analysis against Dr. Jerry Pournelle's web site (the science fiction and Byte magazine writer) which he documents at http://digitalchoke.com/daynotes/reports/phish-1204.pdf. Note his use of Spoofstick( http://www.spoofstick.com/ ). I have used it since reading his article. It seems to work well.

Do be careful. I haven't gotten any of the phishing attacks mentioned, but yesterday I got some undeliverable email reports for four emails I didn't send. I am certainly not going to check the two attachments by double clicking them! That will be done when I have time, off line with another program, probably dos based or through Bart's PE, as I am curious.
 
Jim, Bill and others...

Thanks for sharing this information and warning. Most of us know all this stuff well by now, but even the net-savvy among us need cautioning/reminding once in a while. I am not a moron but even so, during the tedium of a regular workday, I might inadvertently click on something if only to realize a second later that I should have not. It's just that these things are not on everyones mind all the time.

So news of this sort is welcome because it serves to keep us on our toes.
 
Flyfisher Tom said:
By the way, are Macs more secure because there are less Mac hackers or because there are some inherent safeguards in Macs that make them safer than PCs?
Click to expand...

A little of both. Obviously, if you're creating a phishing exploit for the purpose of creating "backdoors" to send out bogus emails, you want to be able to catch as many "phish" as possible. Since there are many more PC phish than Mac phish in the Internet sea, you want to use PC-phish bait.

However, it's a fact that the Mac's underlying Unix operating system has some security advantages over Windows. One feature of Windows that makes it possible to adapt it to many different PC systems is that a lot of settings are centralized in something called the Registry file. That's convenient, but it also means that if someone is able to hack into the Registry file, it's possible to take control of the computer. The same thing can be done on a Unix system, but it's more difficult and requires a higher level of access.

Likewise, some of the convenience features of Windows for installing and updating software can be exploited by a hacker to change settings and gain control. On a Unix system, the same sorts of settings typically require the user to type in an administrator password -- a bit less convenient for the user, but also a bit less convenient for the hacker.

In general, I suggest that people take sensible precautions regardless of which type of computer system they use, but the risk factor is lower on non-Windows systems BOTH because of their smaller market shares and their higher inherent security barriers.
 
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