OnYourMark, LLC Blog

I noticed a new domain spoofing email come in today from icann@icannresolve.com, pretending to be the non-existent “ICANN Resolutions Department”, the email read;

Dear Domain Account Holder,

You are being sent this notice from ICANN due to the fact that you
currently own an active domain name. ICANN is currently upgrading all
domains from their registry database.

The upgrade will introduce new control options for your domain and easier
access. The new upgrade is required by the registry. All domain users are
expected to submit their domain information manually at
http://www.blockedsoyoudontgothere.com/spamaddress with the
required information for ICANN to apply the required updates.

The upgrades will be applied to accounts on a first come, first serve
basis. You have until July 25, 2008 to submit the required information to
avoid service and domain interruption.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

ICANNResolve
ICANN.org Resolutions Department

The whois record shows the domain being registered on June 14, 2008, making it pretty blatantly obvious that it was spam. Just in case though I took a look over at the actual ICANN site and found nothing to support the spam email. After some further careful snooping (actually I just visited the site, something I discourage you from doing), I can see they are simply trying to get you to after filling out some dubious forms, they can take your domain or credit card information.

For more information on what ‘Phishing’ is, please read the OnYourMark Ask the Pro article

If you receive one of these spam messages, please disregard it and notify us.

Our backbone provider at TW Telecom will be doing network maintenance on their switches on Friday, June 13, 2008 (yes Friday the 13th, I didn’t pick it) which will result in periods of downtime starting at midnight and lasting for approximately 1 hour. OnYourMark support staff will be on hand to ensure all services are in working order when network connectivity is returned. We will make an update to this post when the upgrades have been completed.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the support team at 1-800-747-3399 or email them at support@onyourmark.com.

Update: Tonight (May 14, 2008) at 10:00PM CST we will be implementing the new filter via Postini. You will not lose any email and should not see any downtime in your service.

We have noticed that Non-Delivery Receipts (NDR) messages have been flooding users inboxes, sometimes at a rate of 100 or more per hour. A NDR is a message sent from a mail server when a problem occurs with delivery. Normally these are returned to the sender when you type in the wrong email address or send an email to an address or user that doesn’t exist. The increase is due to a tactic spammers are utilizing more prevalently to ’spoof’ your email address, basically making the “From” address be a real domain or sender. The result is that when a server sends a message to a user that doesn’t exist, well spoofing your email address, the recipient email server sends a NDR back to the spoofed email address. When a spammer sends our tens of thousands of emails at a time, the quantity of email bounces increases.

This does not mean you have sent bad emails, only that someone ’spoofed’ your address.

We are currently working with Postini for a solution to this and expect to have it in place within the next week or so. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we fight the ever lasting battle against spam. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at support@onyourmark.com or call toll free at 1-800-747-3399.

We were advised by a client today that NetNanny, a popular porn blocking software, blocks sites that use a legal statement at the bottom of their pages. Since all of our clients have this legal statement I contacted NetNanny to find out when this will be remedied. They assured me the problem will be fixed within the next week.

We will monitor their progress and if it continues into next week, we will contact NetNanny again to find out what updates need to be taken on the legal statement so the site is no longer blocked.

If you are our client and you have any concerns about this, please contact Keith or Ellen.

Thanks you.

March 31, 2008 - A current “phishing” email scam is targeting advertisers using the Google AdWords program.

The emails ask AdWords advertisers to click a link to verify account information or credit card numbers. The emails look very official and may appear to come from support@google.com and adwords-noreply@google.com.

Clicking the link in the email will take you to a page that resembles Google, but it is really a fake page on another server designed to trick you into sharing account information or credit card numbers.

All authentic communications from Google AdWords are sent to OnYourMark, LLC on our clients’ behalf. If a credit card number or account data needs to be changed, OnYourMark, LLC will notify you. If you receive any emails that appear to be from Google AdWords or ask for data from your Google AdWords account, please Contact Us. We are happy to help!

To learn more about “phishing,” please see our January 2004 Ask-the-Pro article, “What is phishing?”

Sample Messages

Dear Google AdWords Customer,Please sign in to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login, and update your billing information.

Your account will be reactivated as soon as you update your payment information. Your ads will show immediately if you decide to pay for clicks via credit or debit card. If you decide to pay by direct debit, we may need to receive our signed debit authorization before your ads start running, depending on your location.

If you choose bank transfer, your ads will show as soon as we receive your first payment.

We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team

******************************

Dear Google AdWords Customer,

Your ads have stopped running because we were unable to process your billing information. We will reactivate you account after you update your billing information. In order to reactivate your account, please sign it to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login, and update your billing information. Once your account is reactivated and your billing information has been processed, any your ads and campaigns can begin running immediately on Google.

You will not be asked to submit your billing information every time you create a new ad or campaign. If your payment has been declined and you’d like to resubmit the same credit card information, you may also do so by clicking the Retry card button on your Billing Preferences page. After updating your credit card information (regardless of whether or not you use a different card), it can take up to 24 hours before your ads start running again. You also have the option of providing a backup credit card to help ensure that your ads run continuously in the case that your primary payment method fails.

Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team

******************************

Dear Google AdWords Customer,

Your ads have stopped running because we were unable to process your billing information.

We will reactivate you account after you update your billing information.

In order to reactivate your account, please sign it to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login, and update your billing information. Once your account is reactivated and your billing information has been processed, your ads and campaigns can begin running immediately on Google.

Advertise your business on Google

No matter what your budget, you can display your ads on Google and our advertising network. Pay only if people click your ads.

Some OnYourMark, LLC clients have received emails informing you that someone is “applying to register [Your Domain Name] as their domain name and Internet keyword.” This is simply spam.

The email is to try and get you to purchase additional domain names such as onyourmark.cn or onyourmark.hk… your domain with the Chinese or Hong Kong extensions. Our clients almost never get domain names with the extensions of other countries. We see a lot of spams like this from China.

We get a lot of spam faxes for domains too, like “OnYourMark.info is about to expire!” We don’t even own or have an interest in OnYourMark.info; it’s just a spammer trying to get you to think your domain is expiring.

When your real domains are close to expiration, we let you know far ahead of time.

So, if you get an email like this:

Dear (Your Domain Name),
We are [Company Name] Co.,Ltd, which is the domain name register center in (city name) China. We received a formal application from a company who is called ShenBan Investment(China) Co.,Ltd are applying to register ” [Your Company or Domain Name]” as their domain name and Internet keyword on Mar 12th, 2008. Because this involved your company name or trade marks so we inform you in no time. If you considered these domain names and internet keywords are important to you and there was necessary to protect them by registering them first, contact us soon.
Kind Regards,
Jason.tan
Beijing [Company Name] Co.,Ltd

just discard it.

If you have questions please email support@OnYourMark.com with your concern or question or call our office at 262-820-8201.

Here is a link to a blog you might be interested in. The blog entry is about what happened when they replied to one of these types of emails.

http://www.healthbusinessblog.com/?p=1620

January 29, 2007 - Yellow Page Directory Services, Inc.’s order form looks like an invoice. Be careful when you read it or you might miss the section that says, “This is a solicitation for goods or services, or both, and not a bill, invoice, or statement of account due…unless you accept this offer.”