A Phishing Attempt On Capital One
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This is a phish scam if I’ve heard one:
Customer ID : 0000-122235432-65AGUEW14386-PSITA
This e-mail is to inform you that your account will be suspended within 48 hours due to your Account Inactivity. You will have to confirm certain Account Information in order to continue your account subscription.
Click the link below to verify your information
[link snipped]You can help us provide you with the most relevant information by taking a moment to tell us your e-mail preferences. And of course you can unsubscribe at any time.
Remember, CapitalOne is committed to your security and protection. To find out more, take a look at our Information Security section under Privacy and Security on the Web site.
Wow, looks and sounds professional, but one thing I couldn’t show you was the return email address they used. It was from Yahoo! Geesh, you know times are rough when a company as big as Capital One has to use an email service from Yahoo. 
The URL that I removed was nothing but an IP address. Oddly enough, the underlying link was the same as the one displayed. So they put all that effort into making professional and worrisome message, but didn’t care about the URL.
Just be careful when you receive emails having anything to do with your money.
Where’d The Website Go?
Before Family WebWatch became a blog, it was a website found at www.familywebwatch.com. Over the years, there was a natural gravitation toward making a more interactive community that provided me the ability to write more frequently without having to deal with coding so much. That’s when Family WebWatch Blog was born.
I own three blogs and contribute to two others. As I became more involved with those, I had to divert my energy away from the site. So I made the decision to take the site down and move this blog in it’s place. If you’ve come here expecting to see my site, that’s why you’re now looking at my blog.
But fear not, I think it’s a change for the better. Granted, posts have been few and far between on FWW and I don’t like that. It’s an issue of time management, but rest assured, I’ll continue to pump new content here.
Thanks for hanging with me. Blogging forward!
A New Wave Phishing Scams Is On The Rise
I just can’t see why some people are into scamming others. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been receiving emails warning me that there has been some “unauthorized activity” on my Bank of America account. The message reads as follows:
Your Online Banking is Blocked
Because of unusual number of invalid login attempts on you account, we had to believe that, their might be some security problem on you account.
So we have decided to put an extra verification process to ensure your identity and your account security.
Please click on continue to the verification process and ensure your account security. It is all about your security.
Thank you.
Continue To Online Banking© 2007 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved.
Well, first of all, the likelihood of Bank of America contacting me with a grammatically incorrect and very brief email is not very high. Phrases like “…verification process to ensure…” and “…click on continue to the verification process…” stand out like a sore thumb. Maybe that’s my journalism degree coming out, but geesh, what a telltale sign.
Second, I don’t have an account with Bank of America. And lastly, but most importantly, the link (deactivated above) goes to a totally unrelated website. How do I know this? By rolling over (not clicking!) the link you can check out the address in your lower left corner of your browser (I’m using Firefox, but that’s most commonly the area you’d find that information).
A number of things could have happened if I had clicked on the link (which I didn’t go to by the way). One example might be that a virus could have been downloaded to my computer or perhaps spyware. In addition to that, if I had entered my information on whatever form I would have been given, which most likely would have been my credit card information and login, then the criminals would have the keys to my kingdom.
The take-away here is to just be careful when you receive emails like this, especially if they are coming from a merchant you have done business with before.
[tags]phishing,scams[/tags]
Spreading The Word: Family Support Forum
This year has been one of growth for me with regard to the blogosphere. I have learned more about blogging and gotten to know other bloggers, which has led to new opportunities. Most recently, I’ve taken the helm of another blog called Family Support Forum (FSF). I’ll continue to write for Family WebWatch, but on FSF I will be writing about a larger range of family related issues.
This new chapter in my life is the result of me getting involved with a network of blogs called the Blog Authors Organization. It’s the brainchild of Garry Conn and Christine Senter, two great people whom I’m pleased to be teaming with.
I feel Family Support Forum is a natural extension to what I do here and provides me with a wider scope of things to talk about and exchange ideas and information with others. I hope that you will visit, and perhaps add it to your reading list.
[tags]family support,kids,parenting,teens,children,babies[/tags]
Education And Fun With Kids National Geographic
As a kid I remember watching National Geographic specials on TV. Being able to watch what happened on the other side of the world was fascinating. It’s a feeling I still have today when I watch documentaries of nature, travel, and space.
Kids National Geographic is likely to instill such a feeling for kids today. It offers a wide variety of activities that will not only excite young minds, but also having them leave the site a little smarter than when they got there.
When first arriving you’ll find a very cool portal with which you can slide around in to “explore” topics to delve into. When you click one you’ll be taken to more facts and activities about it. For example, did you know that the clown fish lives among the tentacles of an anemone? Even though these tentacles sting, they don’t bother the fish.
In addition to finding out more facts about this particular fish, you can click on other choices for it allowing you to see a map of where the fish resides, send an e-card that includes a photo, and even view video clips of them. Oh, and there’s also a card meant to be printed off and cut out to be included in a collection. Kids love collecting things, so why not something that educates them?
And what kind of a kid site would this be without games? Again, many choices abound: Space Janitor, Zipper’s Treetop Trouble, and Iggy Arbuckle: Race Off and lots more!
Kids National Geographic is definitely worth bookmarking and frequent visits! 
[tags]national geographic,kids,games,fun,education[/tags]
John Carosella On K9 Web Protection And Other Resources
Last week I started my three-part series with my interview of John Carosella of Blue Coat Systems. This third and final installment revolves around K9 Web Protection, the parental control service that helps protect families and especially their children while on the Web. Also included are some resources John recommends.
FWW: As you know, I’ve written a review of K9 Web Protection here before. In fact, since its posting last September, it continues to receive comments from readers. Tell us how that product has evolved and where it’s headed.
John: I have to say, I’ve never been associated with a product like K9 before. We get love letters. We get messages from adults who tell us we’ve saved their marriages, their lives (even their souls!). It’s very gratifying. And we get our share of hate-mail from kids (which we take as a sign that we’re doing our job…)
In the beginning of this whole process, we decided to create K9 as solution for the home because we saw how powerful our commercial solution was, and, as parents, we’re all sitting around the table saying things like, “Geez, I want that for MY house…!”
There are a variety of reasons we’ve decided to make K9 free for families — good ones. But one unfortunate reason is that there really isn’t a strong enough market to create, maintain, and sell a high-quality filtering solution for the home. It simply can’t pay for itself.
So, we continue to invest in making K9 better and more available as a community service – but because it doesn’t pay for itself, there are limits on what we can spend in development. And of course we continue to invest in the back-end filtering functionality of K9 (known as Blue Coat Web Filter). The Internet is constantly evolving and we have to hustle to keep up.
Our most recent release of K9 was primarily to achieve compatibility with Windows Vista. Our next release will be to deliver K9 for the Mac. OS.X Leopard is arriving at roughly the same time. We want to be ready. Anybody out there who is technically savvy, and is looking for K9 on the Mac, Blue Coat needs YOU to join our Beta program! We’re also moving ahead working away on the key technologies for Chat and Peer-to-Peer controls within the year so stay tuned.
FWW: As a complement to using a web filter such as K9, what other strategies would you recommend to individuals and families to protect themselves online?
John: For now, I suggest folks find a high-quality Chat/IM control product and a good anti-spam solution as additional tools.
Take a look at some of the back-issues of TheInternetParent blog for some different perspectives on how the Internet is impacting our ability to parent.
And engage your kids by LISTENING to them. What is it that they get out of their “crazy” Internet-driven lifestyle? If you don’t understand what they’re experiencing, you can’t expect them to follow your advice.
FWW: What are some online resources that you look to for Web safety news and tips. Why?
John: For parents of younger kids, I like IKeepSafe.org. For those with older kids, I like Netsmartz and iSAFE. These sites have useful materials for parents, and helpful tools to engage kids. In particular, I encourage your readers to check out the cyberbullying videos at NetSmartz, under their Real-Life Stories.
I also like Children’s Way, of course, for the reasons I’ve identified earlier.
I do have one frustration, though – and I’m sure your readers do too. There are SO MANY organizations out there trying to help us get educated, that I’m often not sure where to turn. I wish we could collect all the efforts and energies of all those passionate people into one coordinated push. I feel like as a community, we could do more if we worked together. 
This is a COMMUNITY issue, and it requires community action. Emphasis on the real, deep, and honest meaning of the word community.
This concludes my interview with John Carosella. I want to thank him for his time, his effort into making the Web a safer place, and his great feedback.
[tags]web safety,parenting,family[/tags]
Do You Have ICE In Your Cell Phone?
This is something that made its way around a number of years ago and I haven’t heard much about it since. So I thought it worthy to call attention to it here.
“In Case of Emergency” (ICE) is a campaign that was thought of by a paramedic. In a lot of cases, most everyone he was rushing out to help had a cell phone, but no one would have known who to call to let them know what happened to the patient.
So by programming your phone with the number of the person you want to be reached in case of an emergency and naming it “ICE”, you’ll be leaving a message to those who can help to alert the ones you love.
[tags]ICE,emergency,cell phone[/tags]
