TCS - Visa

Visa

by Don Singleton
Tulsa Computer Society
From the April 2004 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter

I received several copies of this email:

According to its header (obviously faked) the message was sent from an ISP in Herndon, VA, supposedly from security@visa-security.com -- a domain name registered someone with an email address of spoof@visa.com who is in Foster City, CA. The interesting thing is that spoof@visa.com is a real address at Visa; it is one that they ask that email scam messages be forwarded to. So the message was faked by someone with a sense of humor.

The real Visa International Service Association is in San Francisco, CA

If one clicks on the "Continue" button it sends a form to http://%77%77%77%2E%64%65%6D%6F%73%70%65%6F%70%6C%65%2E%63%6F%6D which really is http://www.demospeople.com/ (but where they don't want you to know the address just by looking at it.)

Demospeople.com is registered to someone in London, England

I went to the real Visa site, and clicked on Security Tips, and got:

Email Fraud

Visa will never send you an e-mail asking for confidential information such as account numbers, passwords, PIN numbers, credit card numbers or social security numbers.

Protect yourself from fraudulent e-mails claiming to be from a credit card company, bank or other popular Internet web site. Delete unsolicited e-mails that ask for this type of personal information. If you suspect you've provided confidential information to a fraudulent site, contact the customer service number on the back of your card or from your account statement.

You can report e-mail fraud claiming to be from Visa by attaching the suspicious message to an e-mail addressed to: askvisa@visa.com

I did as they asked, but so far no response.



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Tulsa Computer Society 4/01/2004
Don Singleton, President