MARCH EDITION Chief of Police Dennis J. Mc Enerney 2017—Volume 4, Issue 3 S.c.r.a.m. gazette

FBI, Sheriff's Office warn of scam artists who take aim at lonely hearts

DOWNTOWN — The FBI is warning of and report that they have sent thousands of "romance scams" that can cost victims dollars to someone they met online,” Croon thousands of dollars for Valentine's Day said. “And [they] have never even met that weekend. person, thinking they were in a relationship with that person.” A romance scam typically starts on a dating or social media website, said FBI spokesman If you meet someone online and it seems "too Garrett Croon. A victim will talk to someone good to be true" and every effort you make to online for weeks or months and develop a meet that person fails, "watch out," Croon relationship with them, and the other per- Croon said. warned. Scammers might send photos from son sometimes even sends gifts like flowers. magazines and claim the photo is of them, say

Victims can be bilked for hundreds or thou- they're in love with the victim or claim to be The victim and the other person are never sands of dollars this way, and Croon said the unable to meet because they're a U.S. citizen able to meet, with the scammer saying they most common victims are women who are 40 who is traveling or working out of the coun- live or work out of the country or canceling -60 years old who might be widowed, di- try, Croon said. when plans are made, Croon said. vorced or have a disability.

“Don’t send money to this person,” Croon Then the scammer will say they need mon- Romance scams cost people in Illinois more said. “The chances of recovering your money ey, citing a sudden hardship like they need a than $4.6 million in 2015. Nationally, the are extremely slim.” visa or medical care, Croon said. scams cost Americans $203 million.

If you have been scammed, you can go to “And because you think you’re in a relation- “It’s not uncommon to have someone to walk IC3.gov and file a complaint, Croon said. ship with this person, you wire the money into FBI Chicago or into a field office in Illinois Source: dnainfo.com to this person as it’s directed overseas,”

AG Madigan Warns Of Immigration Scams After Executive Orders

Illinois law requires immigration service pro- viders who are not licensed attorneys or nonprofits recognized by the Board of Immi- gration Appeals to register with Madigan’s office. Legitimate immigration service provid- ers must provide consumers with a written contract in English and their native language; provide a three-day right to cancel the con- CHICAGO — Illinois Attorney General Lisa tract; and return all documents to the con- been the victim of fraud. My office does not Madigan is warning immigrant communi- sumer if requested, according to the AG’s ask for immigration status.” ties about potential scams in the wake of office. President Trump’s recent executive orders Complaints against immigration service pro- on immigration. Immigrants with concerns about traveling to viders can be filed by calling Madigan’s office their country of origin are encouraged to at (800) 386-5438, or her Spanish hotline at Immigrants are cautioned to beware of seek “reputable and legitimate” assistance (866) 310-8398. scam artists or “unscrupulous immigration and contact their local consulate. service providers” pretending to be lawyers Source: CBS 2 Chicago News or demanding excessive upfront fees, ac- “It is critical to find honest and legitimate cording to a statement from Madigan’s assistance and know the warning signs of office. They should also be cautious of peo- immigration fraud,” Madigan said in the ple claiming to be law enforcement or gov- statement. “I encourage people to contact ernment officials who demand money or my office if you encounter a solicitation that threaten deportation. seems questionable, or if you have already

Next Presentation 4/17 @ 11 AM Niles Police Department 7000 W. Touhy Ave Home Repair Scams Niles, IL 60714 847-588-6500 www.nilespd.com

Chief of Police Dennis J. Mc Enerney Security flaw reveals personal information at 3,400 websites

We always hear of cyber criminals causing havoc the vulnerability was created.  counsyl.com  tfl.gov.uk by breaking into web services with attempts to steal personal data. They can use various hack- The greatest period of impact was from February 13 Cloudflare asserts that there is no evidence of ing methods like brute force, social engineering, to 18, but the leakage may have been going on as far malicious exploits of the bug or signs of malicious back as September 22 of 2016. Leaked sensitive data zero-day exploits and software exploits and use of the leaked information. may have been cached by search engines which hacks. made this bug even more serious. What you can do But what if a simple typo in programming code Cloudflare said the bug had been present in its code Still, since the sensitive data has been potentially could inadvertently leak out data without hack- and unnoticed for years. A recent switch in its HTML exposed for months and was cached publicly in er intervention? parser changed how data is buffered, thus causing search engines, it is wise to change your pass- words if you are using any of the affected Cloud- A coding error in a popular web optimization the memory leak. flare sites. and content delivery company's programming To fix the problem, the company has turned off was discovered to cause thousands of websites the three minor features (e-mail obfuscation, Also, it is a good idea to review your other pass- to leak sensitive data including passwords, en- server-side excludes, and Automatic HTTPS Re- words, Cloudflare site or not, since password cryption keys and cookies for months. reuse attacks will inevitably follow. With that said, writes) that are causing the leaks, and claims the it's a terrible practice to use the same username, Affected sites include services like Yelp, bug is no longer in effect. email and password in multiple sites and services. OKCupid, Uber, Fitbit, ZipRecruiter, Patreon, Here's a list of some of the notable sites affected by Fiverr, Forbes, and . If the service offers it, it's also prudent to use "": Cloudflare, whose service is used by more than multi-step verification or two-factor authentica- 5.5 million websites, admitted in an official blog  authy.com tion if a service offers it. With this, a secondary  coinbase.com code (for example, a code sent via text message post that there was indeed a serious memory  betterment.com leak that may have contained sensitive infor-  fiverr.com to your phone) will be required to verify your  mation. The company said it has already identi- transferwise.com identity.  prosper.com fied and rectified the issue.  digitalocean.com Web services that are affected by this bug may  patreon.com 's Project Zero researcher and bug hunter  bitpay.com also start sending out password change notices to  news.ycombinator.com their users, but please if you receive any, scruti- Tavis Ormandy spotted the issue (unofficially  producthunt.com nicknamed Cloudbleed) on February 18th and  medium.com nize them carefully since they might be promptly informed Cloudflare about it.  4chan.org scams instead. Can you spot the signs of a fake  yelp.com email? Click here to take our quiz.  okcupid.com (If you can recall, Ormandy is the same re-  zendesk.com searcher who exposed flaws and bugs in popular  ziprecruiter.com Source: www.komando.com  uber.com software such as Symantec and LastPass.)  poloniex.com  localbitcoins.com The Cloudflare leak was apparently caused by a  kraken.com single typo. By using the character – '>' rather  23andme.com  curse.com (and some other Curse sites like than '=' – in Cloudflare's software source code, minecraftforum.net)

BBB Scam Tracker Crime Complaint Center

The IC3 accepts online Internet crime com- plaints from either the actual victim or from a third party to the complainant. We can best process your complaint if we receive accurate and complete information from you. There- fore, we request you provide the following information when filing a complaint:  Victim's name, address, telephone, and email  Subject's name, address, telephone, The Chicago Better Business Bureau has a  Financial transaction information (e.g., email, website, and IP address great tool that can help you identify and account information, transaction date report scams. You can then look at the scams and amount, who received the money)  Specific details on how you were victim- as they are reported and see if they are ized trending or occurring in your area.  Email header(s) 2017 Events/Presentations The website has an interactive map, as well  Any other relevant information you be- 4/17 @ 11 am Home Repair Scams lieve is necessary to support your com- as a table format that allows you to see the 4/ 28— 9 am-2pm Mainestreamers plain type, date and community that the scams Golf Mill Center occur. 5/17 @11 am Financial Exploitation https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker/us/