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Trend Micro - How to avoid the latest scam

Do You Know any "Money Mules?"

As personal computer security continues to improve, cyber criminals are finding devious new ways to access accounts. A relatively new scam involves "money mules"—a term used to describe regular people in the U.S. who are willingly or unwillingly recruited to help cyber fraudsters steal money from businesses.

In one case, a young woman was recruited by a company that claimed to be an established New York investment firm. The company approached the woman via email, saying it had found her resume on a popular employment site and offered her a work-at-home job as a "financial manager." Having worked as a payroll manager at a previous job, the young woman thought it was a perfect fit.

After responding to the recruitment email, the woman was asked to provide a large amount of personal and financial data, including a scanned copy of her driver's license and her bank account and routing numbers-always a big mistake.

The investment firm notified the woman that she would receive transfers of up to $10,000 in her bank account, which she was to withdraw, deduct her 8% commission, and send the remainder via Western Union to the investment firm. After depositing the first transfer, the woman's bank discovered it was fraudulent and immediately closed the woman's account. After days of review, the bank recognized that she was a victim of a money mule scam for a bogus investment firm.

Money mule scams can take a variety of forms. In many cases, the bogus firms are located outside the U.S. and can be identified by the country code at the end of the email address. The best way to avoid these scams: Don't send sensitive personal or financial information via email. And don't provide personal or financial information unless you are absolutely certain you are engaged with a reputable company.

Trend Micro offers free prevention tools that will alert you to potentially dangerous scams-like money mule recruitment. Trend Micro email ID helps you identify legitimate email messages in your inbox to avoid fake messages and risks associated with them. Trend Micro Web Protection Add-On works alongside existing desktop protection to block access attempts to potentially malicious Web sites in real-time. Together, these tools will keep you protected from the next wave of cyber scams.

(Source: Trend Micro TrendSetter November 2009)