Online shopping scams pose security threat

Online shopping scams
pose security threat

SAN FRANCISCO — Online shopping scams could become a major security threat in the weeks leading up to Christmas as consumers eagerly type in credit card numbers, click on discount coupons and participate in online promotions, security experts worry.

Instead of moneysaving deals, e-mailed coupons could lead recipients into “phishing” schemes where the consumer is redirected to a copycat site, whose real purpose is to siphon the user’s credit card information, passwords and other financial data, IBM Corp. security executive Christopher Rouland warned.

“That 50-percent-off, one-use coupon could go to a compromised computer in Kazakhstan,” said Rouland, chief technology officer for Internet security systems at Big Blue, which controls more than 1 million “phish trap” e-mail addresses that discovered 867,000 scams in the third quarter. “The quality of malware is very high.”

IBM is urging online shoppers not to click on links within e-mails that appear to come from an online retailer. Instead, open a new Web browser, go to the retailer’s site, navigate to special coupons or promotions and see if it’s there.

Brian Trombley, a product manager for computer security firm McAfee Inc., said holiday phishing scams are shaping up to be an “extraordinary problem” this season.

No single giant retailer has been a particular target of holiday attacks; eBay Inc.’s PayPal unit is still an overwhelming target of scammers.

“The scammers are getting more and more sophisticated,” Trombley said.

Gmail allows users
to chat on AOL service

SAN FRANCISCO — AOL is providing the newest communications channel on Google.

Fulfilling a pledge made two years ago, Google Inc. unveiled a feature that enables people to chat on AOL’s instant messaging service through Gmail — the popular search company’s free e-mail service.

Not all Gmail users can get at the instant message service yet because Mountain View-based Google is still rolling out the coding that includes the settings to log on to AOL instant messaging, or AIM. Google officials didn’t set a timetable for making AIM available to all its Gmail users.

It took a long time to get this far. Google first disclosed its plans to open its doors to AIM in December 2005 when it paid $1 billion for a 5 percent stake in Time Warner Inc.’s AOL.

But the plan went on the back burner while Google engineers worked on myriad other projects, said Mike Jazayeri, a senior product manager for Google.

Meanwhile, rivals Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. last year cross-pollinated their instant messaging services.

Adding access to AOL’s instant messaging service may help Google attract more people to its e-mail service, which has been gaining ground on its larger rivals.

Associated Press