Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The latest "Microsoft patch" scam

This is topic The latest "Microsoft patch" scam in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-03-2003, 05:24 PM:

Just in case there are still suckers out there who think that Microsoft emails out patches to their operating system, note that this email pictured below is a scam to infect your computer with a virus.

If these guys are caught, I hope Microsoft prosecutes them and all of their families into bankruptcy.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 10-03-2003, 05:31 PM:

I couldn't get the patch to work when I received it while running under Solaris. I'm stumped.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 10-03-2003, 06:47 PM:

This is yet another example of how silly hackers are and how dumb the average PC operator is. Bad grammar, incorrect technical terms, and just the whole idea of Microsoft emailing YOU are just too obvious of giveaways. How could anyone fall for this?!

AJG

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-03-2003, 06:55 PM:

Aaron, people are stupid. What will fool them even more is that the hyperlinks contained within the e-mail actually link back to Microsoft. So someone might say "Wow this really is Microsoft!".

I got this one a few days ago. I was on my Mac at the time and it didn't look anywhere near as pretty as Brad's picture, but the content was exactly the same. I am really curious as to what this "patch" does. Is it spyware? Virus? EXE that attempts to take over other people's computers?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-03-2003, 09:23 PM:

Apparently enough users out there have fallen for the scam, as evidenced by my e-mail box having received literally thousands of copies of it --all replications sent from other infected "zombie" computers.

Of course I never fell for it. I knew Microsoft never e-mailed patches to anyone. But on top of that, the scam artists in their attempt to make an official looking MS e-mail alert GOT THE FONT WRONG! Dead giveaway that its a scam! Take a look at that "Microsoft" attempt at a logo in the pic Brad posted. Wrong font. That looks like Arial Bold-Italic. Trouble is Microsoft uses variations of ITC Franklin Gothic in their logo.

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 10-04-2003, 12:29 AM:

They also failed to capitilize the first letter in the first sentence. And the earlier version had a mispelled word in it as well. Ive received well over a thousand of these. Fortunately Roadrunner has caught them all.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-04-2003, 05:15 AM:

Joe said:

quote:
people are stupid

Yes, it seems they are. Take the the e-mail claiming to be from somebody in either Nigeria or the Congo, offering a large percentage of a large sum, for helping them get money out of the Country via your bank account; there are people who have fallen for it.

Then there was a chain letter type scheme some time ago, called 'Women Empowering Women'. It was the usual thing, send money to several people, get much more money back. There was a programme about it on television, where they interviewed several of the 'victims'. They were women in their 20s to 40s, all seemed quite intelligent, yet all had fallen for it. One even said she was not normally taken in by these schemes, but she had been sure that this one would would work. Where did she think all the money was going to come from?

Another recent television programme was about aman in the North of England, who sent out junk mail, not the electronic kind, he drove to his local Post Office every few weeks with a van full of sacks of letters, inviting people to join some sort of dudious scheme, I think it was selling something. They were told that they could, not would, make a fortune if they joined the schene. Many did. Many 'phoned to complain, he never answered the 'phone, but had a permanent answering machine on the line. One caller even asked 'Is this some sort of scam?', but still sent more money.

Each schene would last just a short time, and would then be shut down, to be replaced by a very similar one, operating under a different name from the same address. The names and address of all those who had lost thousands of pounds in these schemes wre kept on file, and would be used again in a future scheme. Some people fell for the same trick several times, in response to a very similar letter, from the same address.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-04-2003, 12:32 PM:

Many victims of scams are lazy individuals who want to get rich by doing nothing. There's many millions of such people in America.

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 10-06-2003, 02:26 AM:

I think that people attach themselves to interesting narratives, like updating patches & alternative moon landing stories. It's part of what gets them sucked into a movie, stage show, or boring joke story being told by a salesman. If I had to theorize with no support, I'd guess that it's likely connected to an ability to empathize developed through evolution which enabled some varmints (like people) to succeed socially as part of its survival path.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 10-06-2003, 04:45 AM:

The Nigerian '414' scam (and it no longer seems to be confined to Nigeria: yesterday I had one from a supposed exiled Zimbabwean white farmer) is now so well known that I find it hard to believe that people are still falling for it. It's even been discussed on national radio and TV! But I guess there must still be some suckers out there, or else the scammers would stop sending the e-mails.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 10-06-2003, 08:34 AM:

I've been fortunate so far -- none of these viruses that I've heard about affect Macintosh users.

I don't think we should be so hard on people who fall for emails containing viruses. Or the virus hoaxes, for that matter. I'd like to believe that it is human nature to be kind and trusting; I disagree with calling people "stupid" if their only crime is that they haven't lost their innocence or their sense of trust in others.

Exception -- stupidity would apply if the person keeps getting suckered into accepting viruses.

Posted by Nicholas Roznovsky (Member # 861) on 10-06-2003, 02:55 PM:

At the bottom of the virus-ridden bogus e-mail:
"The names of the actual companies and products mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners."

Yet, what products are named in the e-mail? Internet Explorer, Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows 95/98/Me/2000/NT/XP! All of these are Microsoft products. [Roll Eyes]

If ye olde hacker had been thinking, they would have made the little blurb at bottom say that all product names are trademarks of Microsoft. In their attempt to look "official", they give themselves away. [evil]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-06-2003, 06:22 PM:

I think it's great how a single patch can fix 95, 98, Me, 2000, NT, and XP. They forgot 3, 3.1, and 3.1.1. Perhaps all MS-DOS versions should be included as well... just in case. The total file size of the patch would be less than 100k. It fixes the operating system with magic!

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 10-06-2003, 07:46 PM:

Multi system patches are nothing new. Many hardware vendors have done the same thing for years. It makes the life of system administrators in a multi system environment so much easier. It also benefits many clueless end users.

Microsoft has actually released many legitimate multi system patches over the years. Although they do usually separate the 9x from NT bases systems... but not always.

nVidia probably uses the massive all-platform patches the most.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 10-09-2003, 01:36 AM:

How to Tell If a Microsoft Security-Related Message Is Genuine