(READ MY Comment)- Online scammers prep for Gustav, say researchers

[companyone]

Online scammers prep for Gustav, say researchers
Nearly 100 domains registered, perhaps for repeat of Katrina phishing attacks
By Gregg Keizer

August 31, 2008 (Computerworld) Nearly 100 domains related to Hurricane Gustav have been registered in the past 48 hours, security experts said Sunday, some of which may be used by bogus charity and relief scams after the storm strikes the U.S. Gulf Coast.

According to television station KTAL in Shreveport, La., the office of Louisiana's Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has warned residents of Gustav phishing attacks already in progress.

On Saturday, Marcus Sachs, the director of the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center (ISC), noted that numerous domains containing the word "gustav," "charity," "hurricane," and "relief" had been recently registered.

"On the day [Hurricane] Katrina hit New Orleans [in 2005] hundreds of donation sites appeared online, many if not most were scam sites," said Sachs in a post yesterday to the ISC research blog. "Well this time around it looks like the people who like to register domain names in anticipation of a storm's arrival have already started registering them for Gustav."

By Sunday, Sachs had listed almost 100 Gustav sites culled from the DomainTools' Web site. "Most of these sites are parked domains and many of them are for sale," he said. "They will be worth monitoring, particularly if 'donate here' messages appear."

Several of the domains, in fact, do appear to be parked, or registered but not fleshed out with content. Others, including helpgustavictims.com and helpgustavvictions.net, were for sale on eBay as of mid-day Sunday.

A few, however, led to legitimate charities. The domain gustavcharity.com, for example, redirected users to the Web site of the evangelical Christian organization "Samaritan's Purse," while contributegustav.org took users to the Baton Rouge Area Foundation's site.

Another security expert, Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, also posted a list of parked domains that may be used for scamming purposes. "Anytime we've seen a natural disaster, we've been on the lookup for domains which might be abused for fraud," said Warner Sunday on his blog. "It was only natural then that I retuned my settings at DomainTools yesterday to alert on Gustav domains."

Warner also pointed out a handful of domains that led to legitimate content.

Three years ago, before and after Hurricanes Katrina slammed into New Orleans, security researchers noted a similar run-up of domain registrations. Enough were used for phony relief scams, often by identity thieves hoping to trick consumers into divulging personal information, that the U.S. Department of Justice set up a Katrina anti-fraud task force.

More than a year later, two brothers were convicted on federal charges for running a fake Salvation Army site that solicited money, supposedly for Katrina relief efforts. The pair, Steven and Bartholomew Stephens, were sentenced to more than 100 months in prison for the scam last December

. STORY

_______________________

MY COMMENT


Two sides to every story
Submitted by Dan on August 31, 2008 - 22:03.

Hi,

I registered the following domains:

gustavcharities.org
gustavcharities.com
gustavcharity.org
gustavcharity.com
gustavdonation.com
gustavdonation.org
gustavdonations.org
gustavfund.org
gustavrelieffund.com

I registered these domains (proactively) to keep them OUT of the scammer's hands.

All are currently "pointed" to: http://www.samaritanspurse.org/

They where and still are helping the victims of hurricane Katrina...as well as helping people around the world.

After this storm (Gustav)...I will "donate" these domains to them or any other legitimate organization...dedicated to helping with the problems of this coming hurricane gustav.

9X$7.45= $67.05 seems like a worthwhile donation...to keep these domain names out of scammer's hands.

Or would you have rather have me NOT registered them and then have some scammer register them first and then.... steal and prey on victims of this coming distaster?

I also did the same thing...for the VT shootings and redirected the domains to the VT official donation site for the family's victims.

So...did other(s)

As I said: There are are always at 'least' two sides to every story.

I suggest you do a little more research on domain names and the great people that are in the domain name business...before writing an article like this.

Peace!
Dan Brown

BTW: I missed the part where they mention one of the domains I registered...before posting my comment.

 

[copper]

Very well said, Dan

 

[Arrogance]

good rebuttal, you're well ahead of Sachs and Warner both of whom are playing online detective while you're contributing to the forthcoming relief effort

 

[companyone]

Hi,
Thanks..."Copper & "Arrogance"...for the nice comments. I am not the only domainer who has done things like this. One member here at DNF spent over $500+ on domain names after the VT shootings and redirected the domains to their official website for the familiys of the victims. Also, some domainers did the same thing before hurricane Katrina.

It looks like the storm right now is weakling....so maybe thre will not be so much damage...but I guess if it stalls right a the coast...that can be just as a bad...because Louisiana could get much more rain fall 8"- "12 and in some places "20+" in a hour... and a big water storm surge...which will be NO good for the levies and canals in NEW Orleans.

So hopefully....it will move quickly through.

They must not expect massive damage to the oil platforms and other oil related infrastructure...as the oil futures have dropped to $110.82 a barrel....down over $4 per barrel right now....which is very good news. I sure this could change...but at least a a good sign for now as it relates to the rest of the USA.

Peace!
Dan

 

[randomo]

Nice work - I have done similar things, registering names that scammers might want & pointing them to reputable organizations.

(On a different note, I owned HurricaneGustav dot-net & dot-info a couple years ago [along with many other hurricane domains], but let them drop. I hope their current owners will use them for good, unselfish purposes.)