Junk fax not what it seems, Part 1

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: M. E. KABAY ON SECURITY
08/30/05
Today's focus: Junk fax not what it seems, Part 1

Dear security.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Junk fax ropes in two unwitting companies
* Links related to Security
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: Junk fax not what it seems, Part 1

By M. E. Kabay

On Aug. 12 at 07:09 a.m. my fax received a prospectus claiming
to be from a marketing company (let's call it Orfilian) on
behalf of a high-tech start-up (let's call it Bazoonium - and
yes, I Googled both names and they didn't show up). The fax
urged people to buy the stock, claiming it would rise in value
by orders of magnitude within months.

It also included a toll-free number for getting out of the
junk-fax list (I didn't dial it) and claimed that Orfilian had
received lots of shares in return for touting the stock.

I dialed *69 on my fax machine to determine the origin of this
junk fax. Unfortunately, the number it gave did not produce any
identification of the owner using the reverse-lookup feature of
Switchboard.com <http://www.switchboard.com/bin/cgirlookup.dll>
and neither did the get-out-of-junk number.

I looked up Orfilian on the Web but had no luck finding contact
information (they use a Web form for e-mail enquiries) so I used
a DNS lookup on orfilian.com with SamSpade v1.4
<http://www.samspade.org/ssw/>, found the phone number in the
DNS entry and heard a phone message from the system
administrator explicitly stating that the company does not send
junk fax and they didn't know where the particular stock-touting
fax came from.

Using the same WHOIS technique on bazoonium.com via SamSpade, I
spoke with someone at Bazoonium; he was very nice and thoroughly
exasperated by the inclusion of his company's name in this junk
fax. He and his colleagues had already received several phone
calls from angry recipients of the same junk fax I got. The
company is currently involved in a merger and there are 6
million shares in public hands. This person was concerned that
the bad publicity from the fake fax might harm the company at
this sensitive time.

I suggested that he obtain affidavits from everyone in the
company affirming their complete lack of involvement in this
junk fax and that he keep a record of possible financial losses
resulting from the fraud (all of this after the usual "IANAL"
warning - "I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice: for
legal advice, consult an attorney").

More in the next column.

The top 5: Today's most-read stories

1. Google dives deeper into networking
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlsec6096>

2. 2005 salary survey
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlsecuritynewsal3996>

3. Intel-Cisco deal may be big for Wi-Fi
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlsec6097>

4. VoIP season about to heat up
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlsec6098>

5. Cisco aims to simplify switch mgmt.
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlsec6099>

Today's most-forwarded story:

Google dives deeper into networking
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlsec6100>

_______________________________________________________________
To contact: M. E. Kabay

M. E. Kabay, Ph.D., CISSP, is Associate Professor in the
Division of Business and Management at Norwich University in
Northfield, Vt. Mich can be reached by e-mail
<mailto:mkabay@norwich.edu> and his Web site
<http://www2.norwich.edu/mkabay/index.htm>.

New information assurance journal - Norwich University Journal
of Information Assurance (NUJIA). See
<http://nujia.norwich.edu/>
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Permeo
FREE SSL VPN Buyers Guide

Need expert advice on selecting an SSL VPN? In this whitepaper,
industry analyst Mark Bourchard, CISSP, discusses how to
approach selecting the ideal remote access solution for your
environment. You'll get expert advice on features to look for,
implementation best practices, as well as a checklist of top
selection criteria. Download a copy today!
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=111825
_______________________________________________________________
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