Here’s The Fake Gmail Site Chinese Hackers Used To Steal U.S., Activist Data

by nvidaloca Sat Jun 25, 2011 1:25 am

Here is the link: http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2011/06/01/heres-the-fake-gmail-login-chinese-hackers-used-to-steal-u-s-activist-data/

On Tuesday, Google revealed on its official blog that it had been the target of a phishing campaign seemingly originating in Jinan, China, and aimed at gaining access to the accounts of senior officials in the U.S., Korea and other governments, as well as those of Chinese activists.

The attack worked–at least in part–by sending the victims spoofed emails, often from accounts that appeared to belong to coworkers, family or friends. Those emails contained links to the spoofed Gmail sites, which harvested the usernames and passwords of anyone fooled by their realistic appearance.

The hackers then used those login details to forward all mail coming into the account to a third party, or in some cases gathered information about contacts to use in other phishing scams.

Google credits the discovery of the scheme in part to the blog Contagio, where a detailed analysis of the scam including images of the spoofed emails and the fake login page above were posted in February.

This kind of phishing scheme isn’t new, and Google warned in its high-profile revelation of Chinese hacking in January of last year that it–like all webmail services–was vulnerable to this sort of spoof attack. But the company has never before revealed so much about its phishing attackers, nor has it shared images of the fake login pages those phishers use.

Contagio points to subtle differences in the two login pages, including the destination of links and small design contrasts. But given the spot-on accuracy of the fake Gmail gateways above, Google isn’t depending on users to tell the difference. Instead, it suggests using its two-factor authentication system, which sends a code to a user’s phone that he or she needs to use to log in. If a user has set up that safeguard and no code appears when he or she is prompted to log in, then the login page might be fake.

Google is also suggesting that users watch for suspicious forwarding settings that might indicate an intruder is copying their mail, as well as a red warning at the top of the page that indicates Google has detected “suspicious activity” that might signal a hacker has gained access to the account.

This is just the tip of the iceberg . I am writing this to alert alot of folks about a looming problem that many people are not aware of and as the RV fast approaches, there is a huge weakness or vulnerability for most people using a computer. I used to work for Microsoft at one time as a tech support person. I enjoyed it and help to set up servers , websites, operating systems and supported IT people in all of these aspects. One of the biggest problems that I found later after I left Microsoft is that if your running Windows operating system you are vulnerable to cyber-hacking. Yes there are programs that help protect one to a certain point, but they still have holes in their firewalls that can be accessed by a smart hacker.
So what is the point of this point ? We are all going to be multimillionaires soon, with all kinds of sensitive information being kept on the computer and so it will present a rich enviornment for hackers looking to pull identity theft, grabbing information deliberately from your computer without your knowledge.
If you are the least bit computer savaay, open up start,run,cmd go to dos and run netstat command and look at the ip addresses that are connected to your computer. For most people this will be an eye opening experience.
You have a huge contigence of Chinese Hackers , you can verify this through running a whois on the internet on the ip address. It is amazing.
Hence, since I create and develop websites, and have experienced being hacked on windows 1st hand, I let go of using it as an operating system.
I have been using a Free operating system called Ubuntu , and have had no problems with hacking as it comes as a closed system. Meaning that all of the ports are closed , when you first install it. You can download it for free and even dual boot it with windows for the learning curve. There are over 2000 free programs that you can download and install. And when you install a program called Moblocquer, and update the ipblocklists for China.
Viola, you have no one able to break into your sensitive information, the hard drive can even be encrypted increasing security further. (note: yes win7 also does have this feature as well in all fairness)
I won't wax too much further on this subject unless there are requests for further info, however, in closing if you're running windows, you'd better really check out the internet security and also having your hosts file set up with the appropiate ipblock lists to protect that sensitive information post| RV hope this helps.

For more validation query in Google "Chinese Hackers"

by trinity Mon Jun 27, 2011 9:23 pm

what if one is using Apple operating system....is that safe enough from being hacked? Thanks in advance!

Here’s The Fake Gmail Site Chinese Hackers Used To Steal U.S., Activist Data

Here’s The Fake Gmail Site Chinese Hackers Used To Steal U.S., Activist Data

Re: Here’s The Fake Gmail Site Chinese Hackers Used To Steal U.S., Activist Data