Beware of Paul Walker Malware Emails

With the death of Paul Walker, be on the lookout for emails containing malware exploiting the news of the celbrity's death.

Often these emails will claim to have "leaked photos" etc.

Be vigilant.

My Letter to a Spammer

I decided to take the time to notify one of the businesses which has been spamming my blog with comments that I'm just not going to take it anymore.  Here is the letter in full.  Note that the company name is being withheld because I don't want them to get any more web traffic from my blog.

Hello,

This is to notify you that an unsolicited advertisement for your business was recently posted on my blog, Caffeine Security.

Please note that as a computer professional, I take spam seriously and it will not be tolerated.

Due to a recent increase in spam on my blog, I have implemented a new Terms of Use which I encourage you to review.  In short, any future unsolicited advertisements for your business will be subject to a $500 comment processing fee for each link posted.  Because your unsolicited advertisement was posted before this Terms of Use was in effect, any pre-existing advertisements are not subject to this processing fee.  However, all future unsolicited advertisements will be subject to this processing fee.  Third party advertising services and automated applications posting these comments on your behalf are considered your "agent", and accept these terms on your behalf.  If you do not wish to be subject to this fee in the future, I highly advise you discontinue unsolicited comment advertisements on blogs immediately.  If these advertisements are being posted by a 3rd party advertisement service, the recommended course of action is to notify this advertisement service immediately to discontinue unsolicited advertisements.

Thanks,

Ken
Caffeine Security

New Terms of Use - $500 Processing Fee for Comment Spam

Due to an increase in spam, I've had to add a Terms of Use page.

In summary, the Terms of Use for this site explicitly state that any unsolicited advertisements within comments agree to a $500 comment processing fee for each link within the comment.  Comments which are not unsolicited advertisements are exempt from this processing fee.

Research Project - Project Picnic Basket

I've decided to start a second research project called Project Picnic Basket.

This is of course a reference to Yogi Bear's crazed attempts to obtain any and all picnic baskets.  I have setup a SSH honeypot with a weak root password.  The honeypot has no access to my internal network, and is actually a virtualized Linux system using Kippo.

I've also setup a spam honeypot on this blog site using Project Honey Pot.

I will post any interesting results as I get them.

Research Project: To Catch a Scammer

My first featured research project on this site will be "To Catch a Scammer".  I'm sure you've heard of NBC's To Catch a Predator.

The idea behind this research project is to examine internet scams and frauds, such as Advance Fee Fraud aka Nigerian 419 scam, auction scams, stock scams, etc.

I am currently researching the techniques used by Advance Fee Fraud scammers.

Surely this will be filled with fun.  I'm already conversing with one of the scammers, and will be uploading some rather interesting findings soon.