The Dark Visitor

Thanks to Websense Security Labs for informing us about a new advance-fee scam targeting Chinese Skype users.  Apparently, Chinese users get a message indicating that they have won a significant sum of money and prizes.  They are directed to a phishing website where they fill out contact information for the prizes but nothing too suspicious.  Finally, they are redirected to a bank transfer page where they will have to send in a fee of several hundred RMB to collect the prize.  I wonder if the officials reading Tom Skype users’ messages are falling for this too.

A reporter from China Ningbo Net recently received an e-mail from hackers offering a unique set of services, breaking mailbox passwords and remote control of other people’s computers. According to the hackers’ pricelist, they offered the following services:

1. 300 Yuan to break an overseas mailbox password, with 85% probability of success
2. 200 Yuan to break a domestic mailbox password, with 90% probability of success
3. 1000 Yuan to break a company’s mailbox password (no success rate given)

By going to the webpage supplied in the e-mail and using their QQ number, the reporter was able to find out that the hackers could break passwords for 163, 126, QQ, Yahoo, Sohu, Sina, TOM, Hotmail, MSN…etc.

Furthermore, the reporter learned that despite the disclaimer on the website that read, breaking into other people’s mailbox is an illegal activity and these services are soley for the purpose of recovering a forgotten password, they pretty much didn’t care if the mailbox belonged to you or not. Yep, if you paid, they would get you that password. Surprise!

The hackers also wanted 50 Yuan upfront money deposited in their bank or Alipay account as a show of good faith from the buyer.

The reporter consulted with IT experts and Public Security officials who confirmed that yes, it was possible to break into a mailbox but that this was more than likely just an online scam to cheat people out of money.