Latest Bank of America Scam

Below is the latest scam that is going around, I received this from a lady who wanted to know if it was real or not. I did some research and of course it was not. If you google the following (Joan Own, David Dupont or daviddupont154@aol.com) , you will find more information on this scam.

My recommendation is to delete it and do not respond to this email.
_________________


From: BANK OF AMERICA <joan.own@bankofamerica.com>
Sent: Tue, Aug 4, 2009 7:41 am
Subject: YOUR PAYMENT NOTIFICATION...

Bank of America Corporate Center

Senior Personal Banker - Head Office

Bank Of America Corp Ctr 100 North Tryon Street

Charlotte, NC 28255-0001

ATTN: BENEFICIARY

This is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly completed an Investigation with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you legally won the sum of $800,000.00 USD from our online balloting system in the Banks Head Quarter in United States of America. This funds have been investigated and we have discovered that your e-mail won the money from our Online Balloting System and we have been authorized to contact you and pay to you, your winnings via a Certified Cashier's Check.

Normally, it will take up to 2 business days for an Bank of America Check to be cleared, cashed and remmited into your account by another local bank. We have successfully notified the banks on your behalf that funds are to be drawn from our registered bank, the Bank Of America so as to enable you cash the check instantly without any delay, henceforth the stated amount of $800,000.00 USD has been deposited with our bank, Bank Of America in COVINA, CALIFORNIA. where your check is deposited in a new online account. This is the Online Number: 626-453-8400 to verify the deposited Check.

We have completed this investigation and you are hereby approved to receive the certified cashier's check into your personal account as we have verified the entire transaction to be Safe and 100% risk free, due to the fact that the funds is with Bank Of America you will be required to settle the following bills directly to the Bank of America Agent in-charge of this transaction whom is located here in United States of America. According to the directives, you are required to pay for the following -

(1) Deposit Fee's (Fee's paid to setup a new account for the beneficiary by the Bank Of America)

(2) Courier Delivery Fee (Fee paid to deliver the check through UPS deleivery to your designated address)

(3) Insurance (This is the fee paid by bank to insure the check before been deposited at the bank)

The total amount for everything is $450.00 (Four Hundred and Fifty-US Dollars). We have tried our possible best to indicate that this $450.00 should be deducted from your funds but we found out that the funds have already been deposited at Bank Of America and cannot be accessed by anyone apart from you the beneficiary, therefore you will be required to pay the required fee's to the Agent in-charge of this transaction via Western Union Money Transfer Or Money Gram.

In order to proceed with this transaction, you will be required to contact the agent in-charge (Mr. David Dupont) via e-mail. Kindly look below to find appropriate contact information:

CONTACT AGENT NAME: MR. David Dupont

E-MAIL ADDRESS: daviddupont154@aol.com

BANK OF AMERICA, 1375 N Citrus Ave, Covina, CA 91722.

You will be required to e-mail him with the following information:

FULL NAME:

ADDRESS:

CITY:

STATE:

ZIP CODE:

DIRECT CONTACT NUMBER:

You will also be required to request Western Union details on how to send the required $450.00 in order to immediately Deliver your funds $800,000.00 USD via Certified Cashier's Check drawn from Bank Of America, also include the following transaction code in order for him to immediately identify this transaction : EA2948-910.

After making the payment to the Agent in-charge, an Account Information, with Account Name and Access Code will be given to you, to access your funds where it is deposited in an online account with the bank of america. This is the Online Account Number: 626-453-8400 and the Agent incharge will issue you the CODES.

This letter will serve as proof that the BANK OF AMERICA is authorizing you to pay the required $450.00 ONLY to Mr. David Dupont via information in which he shall send to you, if you do not receive your funds of $800,000.00 we shall be held responsible for the loss and this shall invite a penalty of $10,000 which will be made PAYABLE ONLY to you (The Beneficiary).Failure to contact Mr. David Dupont and complete the delivery of your check to you, the check will be deposited with the bank reserve.

Best Regards

JOAN OWEN

Senior Personnel Banker - Head Office

Note: The $450 can not be deducted from your fund of $800,000 becuase the cashiers's check have been insured and also all fees must be paid before the check will be delivered your designated address.

Interesting article from Sophos.com

Barack Obama exploited in malware spam attack

Many Americans will have woken up today with a headache - either from celebrating the victory of Barack Obama or drowning their sorrows at John McCain’s loss of the White House.

One thing is clear though - malware authors haven’t been slow reacting to the news, and President Elect Barrack Obama is already being used as a lure for infecting unsuspecting internet users.

Here is a typical piece of spam that is being seen in our spam traps around the world:










Were you to click on the link you would find yourself on a website pretending to be a news site offering information and a video of Barack Obama’s historic win. However, the site tries to fool you into installing what it claims is an update to Adobe Flash to view the video.

The Continuing Threat: Identity Theft

Identity Theft is a continuing threat that has brought great inconveniences and expenses to many victims.  Dept of Justice stated Identify Theft is the fastest growing white collared crime in recent the past five years.

The accessibility of the internet has given identity thieves access to a wealth of personal information.  Online brokers gather data such as social security numbers, driving records and employment information from publicly available records, customer provided forms and credit card applications.

Identity thieves purchase reports with stolen credit cards and use the information to obtain phony documents and credit cards.

Furthermore, social engineering, malware infections and dumpster diving has all led to the growing issues of identity theft.

Nigerian Social Engineering Scams

Another one of those Nigerian social engineering scams. We need to get together with their government to help put a stop to these scams.

For more information on the different types of these scams, please check this link out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_fee_fraud



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Senate Resolution Committee
Date: Sat, May 3, 2008 at 9:23 PM
Subject: Contract Payment.
To: undisclosed-recipients

This is to officialy inform you that we have verified your
Contract/Inheritance payment of US$5,500,000, and we the Senate committee on
appropriation and finance have arranged your payment to be paid with a Visa
card in regard to an order from MR. President Umaru Musa Yara'dua
(GCFR) Federan Republic of Nigeria, a Visa card which you will use to
withdraw your money from any part of the world have been approved for you.

To receive your Visa card with available credit of $5.5 million us dollars contact Mr.Femi
Coker on this email: femicoker@live.com with the following:

1.full Name 2. Address 3. Phone 4.Your age
5.Occupation

Regards,
Barr.Kemi Silver.

Nigerian gets 18 months for cyber attack on NASA employee using Social Engineering

A Nigerian man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for wooing a NASA employee so he could sneak malware onto her work computer and steal passwords, banking information and 25,000 screen shots.

Akeem Adejumo, a 22-year-old Nigerian citizen, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in prison by the Lagos State High Court in Nigeria late last month. He was initially charged with four counts but pleaded guilty to two counts of obtaining goods by false pretenses and forgery.

Full Story from ComputerWorld Security

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=privacy&articleId=9081838&taxonomyId=84

Definition of Social Engineering
Social engineering is a collection of techniques used to manipulate people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. While similar to a confidence trick or simple fraud, the term typically applies to trickery for information gathering or computer system access and in most cases the attacker never comes face-to-face with the victim.