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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
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From: DuckTapeSunroof9/28/2005 9:50:25 PM
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Today's focus: Fight Katrina frauds

By M. E. Kabay

Depravity knows no bounds. Millions of donors had contributed
more than $600 million by Sept. 16 to help the victims of
Hurricane Katrina, according to news wire reports; however, the
FBI also reported that thousands of Web sites have appeared
soliciting money for disaster relief, and many of them are
fraudulent.

A Sept. 13 article from the Associated Press published in the
Washington Post networkworld.com reported
that "The FBI [had] so far reviewed 2,100 sites, of which 60%
are foreign and thus more likely to be bogus, said FBI assistant director Chris Swecker."

Even the Federal Emergency Management Agency may have been
scammed; the official Web site listed Pat Robertson's "Operation Blessing"
democracynow.org as
the second of three recommended charities, yet this charity has
a questionable record in allocation of funds, including
allegedly taking $400,000 of money originally donated for relief during Rwandan genocide in the mid-1990s and diverting it to send mining equipment to a diamond operation in Zaire in which Robertson was the principal shareholder. Robertson is reported to have refunded that money and then escaped prosecution through political connections.

Some identity thieves have apparently been making donations from their victims' credit cards. Brian Krebs of the Washington Post wrote in his blog on Sept. 12 that he saw traffic on a chat channel clearly indicating that criminals were doing so
("Scammers 'donate' to Katrina Relief Effort"
blogs.washingtonpost.com ). Krebs
immediately forwarded the details of the fraudulent credit card
use to the Red Cross and also called two victims to alert them
personally of the fraud in the hope that they could cancel those donations. These people confirmed that their cards had been misused.

A Sept. 12 posting on a blog run by Gene Becker, an interesting
musician who works for HP Labs, reported on the misuse in a
phishing scam fredshouse.net of
what appears to be a copy of an e-mail appeal from the
Republican National Committee; the original (legitimate) links
to the American Red Cross Web site were replaced by pointers "to an oddly wholesome looking [Asian Web site] with the title
'God's Family.'"

Network and security administrators would do well to remind all
their users to be on guard about sending money to crooks,
especially when everyone's thoughts and prayers are going out to the victims of this recent appalling disaster.

--- NW on Security
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