Two web scams have been doing the rounds in the last few months. They show the increasing determination of the scammers and their ability to reinvent new ways of turning old tricks.

Inflated rates for domain names
Several local companies and Chamber members have been contacted by telephone recently by European Domain Solutions (EDS) based purportedly in Leicester UK. They call to advise local companies that another unidentified company, implying it is a competitor, has been attempting to register a similar web address but with a different domain extension - .net, .biz, or .eu. They also tell the local companies contacted that this is likely to damage their business.

EDS claim that there is no UK legislation to protect domain registration. What they omit to tell companies is that ICANN (www.icann.org) does just that. Mysteriously EDS were unable to provide further details as to the identity of the companies attempting to register these similar domain names.

Using a trumped up claim that under some non-specified UK legislation, EDS go on to say that they are obliged to inform the local company when another firm is trying to register a website with a similar name.

The sting comes when EDS tells the local firm that they can register a website on their behalf to protect their business. The rate EDS charges for this is £30 per year per name for a 5 year contract, paid up front. This could be reduced to £25 per year per name for a ten year contract, again paid for in advance.

So for a fictitious company with a web address like www.xyzgibraltar.gi if another company was trying to register www.xyzgibraltar.net or www.xyzgibraltar.eu or www.xyzgibraltar.biz EDS would charge £30 per year for each of these. If you registered all three of these for 5 years with EDS, it would cost you £450.

Most domain hosts charge currently between US$15 - 35 per or £ sterling equivalent per domain per year, depending on whether you want email diversion, number of email addresses and so forth.

Legally EDS do not appear to be breaking any law but they are using fear to pressurise local firms to register names they don’t want or don’t necessarily need at an inflated price. Anyway, registering a name is the easy bit. What really makes the difference is whether anyone can find your website. To do this effectively you need good search optimisation which does take time, money and a bit of expertise. There are plenty of locally based firms who can do this for you. No need to go to the UK for this.

Ransomware
This scam is somewhat more pernicious and happens when your computer is hijacked by hackers who blackmail you into making a payment in order to be able to access the files stored on your own PC. Thankfully it is not widely known in Gibraltar yet but hopefully forewarned is forearmed.

Criminals encrypt files with complex passwords, leaving a ransom note telling victims not to contact police. The first that users are aware they have been hacked is when they discover that their computer files have vanished and have been replaced by one 30-digit password-protected folder. Sometimes hackers will also create a file with a name like “instructions how to get your files back” onto the user’s desktop.

A trainee nurse in the north of England recently became a victim of this new internet scam. In her case the crooks left a virtual ransom note on her desktop saying that she would have to buy drugs from an online pharmacy to find out the password.

This type of scam, known as Ransomware, means victims cannot access any of the files stored in their My Documents folder. It is thought the message was part of the scam and she inadvertently downloaded it. One particular virus is known as Archiveus and victims are coerced into buying pharmaceutical drugs from an online pharmacy, thought to be based in Russia.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said: “Our High Tech Crime Unit is aware of this new type of crime and incidents of this kind could increase in future.”

PROTECTION TIPS

• Be sure to use a firewall
• Update your antivirus software regularly
• Scan your pc on a weekly basis
• Make a back up of your documents at least once a month

Hackers sometime create a folder with instructions on how to get your old files back