Wiz's Computer and Website Security Blog

August 18, 2013

Last week, I wrote two articles (1 - 2) that revealed that the amount of spam for green coffee bean extract had been surpassed by a big pump and dump campaign, which was pushing two different stocks. Now, the pattern has reversed and weight loss spam exceeds pump and dump.

Regarding the weight loss scams; they no longer mention green coffee bean extract in the spam message bodies. You find this out if you click on the links, which have also morphed from Polish domains (.pl) to Russian domains (.ru). The rest is the same stuff, using Russian underground affiliate template web pages, hosted on Russian web domains. Most of the diet scams I saw this week are spoofing Dr. Oz as the sender, using a couple of different spellings. The message bodies even claim to be official Dr. Oz newsletters, which they are NOT! All of the details are bogus, as is the diet formula they promote.

Note: I researched Green Coffee Bean Extract and found reports on real forums (like WebMD) where most of the people using it got sick from it, until they stopped taking those capsules. The only weight loss was from vomiting, etc.

Pump and Dump

The new pump and dump scam emerging over the last few days is a scam promoting a stock with the symbol MONK. The two previous campaigns seem to be mostly abandoned, after they failed to make the expected profits for the scammers running this dog and pony show. If you are smart, when you see emails promoting MONK, with or without underscores and/or spaces between the capitalized letters, don't be fooled into thinking they are legit. They are scams, run by professional con men, all of whom have conspired to purchase large volumes of shares in the penny stocks they pump up.

As always, the goal of a pump and dump campaign is to pump up interest in a stock, using botnet sent spam messages, driving up the volume of transactions and the value per share. When the value reaches an agreed-upon price, the scammers all sell off their shares, turning a profit for themselves, at the expense of everybody else whom they suckered in.

Today's take-away

1: Green coffee beans won't help you lose weight, but will sicken you and lighten your wallet.
2: Getting involved with a pump and dump stock scam will lighten your bank account when it fails. Further, these are Ponzi Scams, under US law.

Posted by Wiz at 4:46 PM | Permalink

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August 11, 2013

Last week I wrote about a new "pump and dump" spam campaign being used to artificially inflate the value of a penny stock, with the trading symbol IMTC (actually renamed to IMTCQB). Spam for this penny stock has exploded over the last week, overtaking all other categories.

The pump and dump email messages are sent by anonymous persons, using spoofed sender information and compromised computers, making grandiose claims about the potential profits for investors. Despite not revealing their actual names, the scammers often use the first person in the subjects or body text, with phrases like "If this company doesn`t Bounce I will RETIRE!"

The purpose of these anonymous email spam messages is to pump of the value of a low value stock by means of trickery, until it peaks. The people behind these stock spam campaigns purchase large volumes of a targeted stock when the price is very, very low. At an agreed upon time they compose an email spam campaign and rent a botnet to disburse fake news and innuendo about the potential trading value of that stock.

Eventually, after enough people have been fooled into investing in this risky endeavor, the value per share goes up, often substantially, in a short time. Then, when the value appears to have peaked, or reaches an agreed upon value, the scammers sell off (dump) all of their holdings at a profit, leaving the later investors holding the empty bag. Thus, it is no surprise that on the Otcmarkets.com page for IMTC, a black skull and crossbones is displayed, with the Caveat Emptor hover text beginning with: buyer beware.

The latest incarnation of these spam messages goes to great length to try to fool potential investors with long paragraphs written in broken English (by scammers whose native language is not English). They are now even including a paragraph of disclaimer language, again using poor English grammar. This should act as a red flag for any North American English reading potential investors (who are the primary targets of this campaign)!

The following is a direct quote, bad grammar included, from one of this weekend's email scams promoting the IMTC stock.

Today is considered to be a superb moment to procure one of the most downplayed development enterprise involved in the industry. I'm uttering about Imogo Mobile Technlogies (IMT C). Their particular shares worth has now escalated higher than average for the reason that purchasers are initiating to see how downplayed it may be. But nonetheless, please don't burden yourself there exists right now countless upside opportunities, realistically we imagine OTCBB: IMT C may very well get to more than $3.9. Do not miss the opportunity with this one, it is now a surefire to make so many shareholders very loaded!

This is followed by a lame disclaimer, again poorly written.

This is now a paid commercial Shareholders can trade in their specific securities at or even within the days the said services are pulled off. You see, the company presented through this email would not necessarily need to cover any specialized banking set of guidelines and even are normally developmental phase organizations of which present a substantially a lot more potential risk to traders and additionally an investment option of this means can easily give you a complete Defeat during a stretch of time. This can be not a proposal to own or distribute stocks. Resources or feedback in such a report normally frameworked merely for instructive features.

At least the anonymous spammer is attempting an ounce of honesty by including a disclaimer warning of potential looming losses.

Who is the company being targeted in this spam campaign?

According to the company description, "Imogo is the SuperCloud computing platform that synchronizes and secures desktop, files, data, email, digital telephony and messaging." However, according to information I found on their website, they are also involved in reselling overstocked Chinese goods.

Reality check: what is the company actually worth?

On 18-Jul-2013, IMOGO filed a Form 10-Q for IMOGO MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES CORP. The report lists the date of incorporation, name changes, a letter of understanding in the acquisition of Imogo Mobile Technologies, and nature of the business. Further down the page the actual cash holdings and prospects are revealed, as is required by law for companies filing such reports. These items are especially important to potential investors, as they determine the stability and probable future of the company.

Cash and Cash Equivalents

For purposes of the statement of cash flows, our company considers all highly liquid investments purchased with an original maturity of three months or less to be cash equivalents. As of May 31, 2013 and May 31, 2012, there were no cash equivalents

.

Here is the real kicker:

As of May 31, 2013 our total assets were $0 and our total liabilities were $144, 814 and we had a working capital deficit of $144,814. Our financial statements report a net loss of $13,434 for the six months ended May 31, 2013 and a net loss of $188,357 for the period from September 6, 2005 (date of incorporation) to May 31, 2013. Our net loss from operations increased to $13,434 for the six months ended May 31, 2013, as compared to $4,583 for the six months ended May 31, 2012. Our losses have increased primarily as a result of increased professional fees.

The continuation of our business is dependent upon obtaining further financing, a successful implementation of our business plan, and, finally, achieving a profitable level of operations. The issuance of additional equity securities by us could result in a significant dilution in the equity interests of our current stockholders. Obtaining commercial loans, assuming those loans would be available, will increase our liabilities and future cash commitments.

There are no assurances that we will be able to obtain further funds required for our continued operations. As noted herein, we are pursuing various financing alternatives to meet our immediate and long-term financial requirements.

There can be no assurance that additional financing will be available to us when needed or, if available, that it can be obtained on commercially reasonable terms. If we are not able to obtain the additional financing on a timely basis, we will be unable to conduct our operations as planned, and we will not be able to meet our other obligations as they become due. In such event, we will be forced to scale down or perhaps even cease our operations.

This company has generated no cash in at least the last 12 months and is in danger of dissolving unless they can find investors or financing. This honest description of their fragile status is a far cry from the bright outlook presented by pump and dump scammers in spam email blasts.

The Pump and Dump Campaign

From mid October 2012 through mid-January 2013, the stock averaged between 5 and 6 cents. On January 10, it dipped to an even 5 cents, with no volume. The next few days saw the volume increase to over 37000 shares, causing the value to jump to 17 cents. It remained at 17 cents for several months, then dropped to 14 cents on June 21, 2013.

Between June 21 and August 2, 2013, the stock value of IMTC remained flat lined at 14 cents. Remember, on July 18 they filed a very unpleasant financial report, outlining a bleak future that might well end in under 12 more months. Then, suddenly, on August 3, the value of their stock began to rise, although there was no good news issued by the company (just the opposite). The volume and value continued to rise until Friday, August 9, coinciding with the ongoing pump and dump campaign. Sometime next week, watch for a big sell-off, as the price peaks, and the pumpers become dumpers. The value will drop well below the previous 14 cents and Imogo will be in even worse shape financially.

This is how pump and dump scams work. A company is watched, then when the stocks dip to a very low value, the scammers buy a large volume. After sitting on their holdings for a month, or as in this case several months, they begin a large spam campaign. When the price peaks, they sell off everything, wait a while, and either start again (buying low), or pick a new target to exploit.

Posted by Wiz at 12:52 PM | Permalink

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August 9, 2013

In my previous article about the types of spam I was intercepting, most of it was promoting a dubious and often dangerous diet herb called green coffee bean extract. The next most seen category of spam was for "pump and dump" stock scams.

However, there seems to be a change in spam topics happening this week. Now, the fat burning scams are greatly reduced, while the pump and dump scams have quadrupled. In fact, the Eastern European stock scammers are now trying to manipulate two penny stocks at the same time. Using fake news and bogus forward looking statements, they are drumming up interest in the two targeted stocks (in which they have invested) in the hopes of conning new investors into buying shares valued in the penny range, driving up the value, just so that they (the scammers) can dump their holdings when the price peaks. The people who are fooled by these spam messages will lose all of their investments as the stock crashes.

This destruction of a stock's value has already occurred, when the same people pumped and dumped a stock with the symbol HAIR. They are now in the process of destroying the value of two other companies: BLDW and IMTC. If you receive an email promoting any of these stock symbols, delete it without a second thought. the stocks will not rise to the projected values listed in the spam messages. You will not get rich (the opposite will happen). The "big news" they often mention is an invention of professional con men.

Note: all of the pump and dump scams this year have placed underscores between various letters in the four letter symbols. This is done to attempt to fool spam filters. But, they don't get past my regular expressions spam filters that I write and publish for MailWasher Pro users. If you aren't already using MailWasher Pro, I invite you to check it out.

In place of the herbal diet spam, I am seeing an increase in counterfeit watch and Money Mule recruitment messages. The watches are Chinese knockoffs of famous brand names. If somebody thinks that a fake Rolex watch is going to impress the ladies, as some of these spam messages imply, they need stop watching Suits and get real life.

I don't know what the odds are that a counterfeit big name watch will get some poor schmuck laid or promoted, but I suspect they are slim to none.

The Money Mule scams are run by really dangerous criminal enterprises that are involved in International money laundering. Taking part in one of these scams can land you in jail. One of the scams I saw yesterday included this:

Vacancy - apply online

Hello, We have an excellent opportunity for an apprentice applicant to join a rapidly expanding company.

An at home Key Account Manager Position is a great opportunity for stay at home parents or anyone who wants to work in the comfort of their own home.

snip

You will be processing orders from your computer. How much you earn is up to you.
The average is in the region of $1000- $1300 per week, depending on whether you work full or part time.

The people who fall for this will be processing, not "orders" but stolen funds or the proceeds of other crimes, and remitting them to foreign countries. Many of these funds are stolen from bank accounts by surreptitiously installed banking Trojans on computers used for online banking. Other transactions may be used to launder drug money, or funds transferred to terrorist organizations.

Rather than getting paid $1000 - $1300 (whatever) per week, the unsuspecting Money Mules are cut loose and abandoned after their first successful transaction. Emails and phone calls are no longer answered by their handlers. When the person or business whose stolen funds you transferred reports the theft to their bank, the ensuing investigation will lead to your bank, then to You.

Your bank will attempt to collect the entire amount, plus a refused payment penalty. They may take legal action against you, including notifying the Police about your participation in a money laundering scheme. This is a Federal crime (FICA) in the USA and most other countries.

My hope is that my blog articles will keep some of you from being scammed by professional spammers and con men. The best security your computer can have must always include a well prepared mind at the helm. Staying aware of the types of scams and come-ons being used by spammers will add another layer of protection to your computer and any bank accounts accessed by it. Don't become the weak link between the chair and the keyboard!

Finally, you should always operate a computer with the best anti-virus and/or anti-malware software that you can afford. I even run anti-virus on my Android smartphones. They are the newest targets of malware authors and it is only getting worse with poisoned "apps."

Posted by Wiz at 12:59 AM | Permalink

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