Junk fax not what it seems, Part 2

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: M. E. KABAY ON SECURITY
09/01/05
Today's focus: Junk fax not what it seems, Part 2

Dear security.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Pump 'n' dump wire fraud
* Links related to Security
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: Junk fax not what it seems, Part 2

By M. E. Kabay

In my last column I described a junk fax that was supposedly
sent by the marketing firm "Orfilian" and that touted
"Bazoonium" stock (all names changed). In this column I analyze
what was actually happening.

I think this junk fax, which apparently came from Canada, was
part of a pump 'n' dump stock manipulation scheme. Someone was
faking a press release, blaming the company and an innocent
marketing firm, and trying to move stock prices up or down,
depending on how they are managing the fraud. For example, if
they bought low, they wanted the stock to rise in price (at
least until they could sell at a profit). If they sold futures,
they may have wanted the price to fall so they could buy at a
lower price than their guaranteed selling price.

In any case, this scam is violating FCC rules
<http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/unwantedfaxes.html> on
unsolicited faxes. This fraudulent information is presumably
being sent across state lines ( potential interstate wire fraud
<http://tinyurl.com/9taao> ) although I don't know what effect
the origination in Canada might have (if that information is
true).

Plus, the junk fax was sullying the reputation of two innocent
firms and possibly causing them significant loss of business by
tarnishing their reputations. It might cost shareholders money
if people were to buy shares at artificially inflated prices or
sell at artificially depressed prices.

Finally, this case teaches us that calling up the ostensible
villains identified on a junk fax (and sometimes on junk e-mail)
and shrieking abuse at them may not always reach the true
villains in this time of negligible authentication of identity.

When someone produces fax machines that block all transmissions
except those on an internally maintained, secure list of
approved callers, we won't have any more junk fax - for a few
months. Then the criminals will use Caller-ID spoofing tools
such as VoIP
<http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,66954,00.html> or the
methods briefly offered by the unfortunate Jason Jepson
<http://tinyurl.com/dtsln> to conceal their originating phone
number (Jepson gave up his proposal to offer false Caller ID
after receiving threatening e-mail and phone messages "and [a]
death threat taped to this front door."

Gosh, and I thought _I_ didn't like junk communications!

The top 5: Today's most-read stories

1. Google dives deeper into networking
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlsec6096nlsecuritynewsal6221>

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

3. VoIP rollouts generate heat, power concerns
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlsecuritynewsal6225>

4. Cisco aims to simplify switch mgmt.
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlsec6099nlsecuritynewsal6222>

5. VoIP season about to heat up
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlsec6098nlsecuritynewsal6223>

Today's most-forwarded story:

VoIP rollouts generate heat, power concerns
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlsec6293>

_______________________________________________________________
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 Nokia
Nokia Secure Access System - Continuing the Legacy of Leadership
with SSL VPNs

VPN solutions based on IP Security (IPSec) have been widely
deployed to securely connect multiple office and campus sites,
and Nokia has been offering award-winning IPSec VPN solutions
for several years with deployments around the world. Until
recently, the same IPSec VPN technology has been used for
enterprise remote access solutions. These solutions were
generally limited to enterprise-supplied equipment, such as
laptop PCs. The emergence of SSL technology employed in Nokia
Secure Access System, however, has significantly changed the
landscape for remote access solutions. Learn more!
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=111823
_______________________________________________________________
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