New fraud scheme on Google (phishing / click fraud)

Fraudsters send you a fake email about your AdWord account being terminated. They ask you to renew your account by login on to a fake Google AdWord website that looks real. That's how they steal your login/password. Once your account is hijacked, they increase your daily budget and your bid for keywords that are part of their botnet system. In the process, they might also steal your credit card info or other useful info (your address for identity theft, your keyword list to feed their botnet).

Complaint received from a client:

Vincent....don't know if you'd be interested in this...but i use
google ad words & just recently someone hacked into my profile &
changed my daily max from $10 to $6,810, and then miraculously i
received over 1,000 clicks that day at $5.50 per click....they were
trying to charge me over $7K. I reported it and about a week later
they admitted it was not legitimate. Have you heard of this

Email sent by fraudsters:

Renew Your Account Now !

Dear Member,

This is your official notification from Google Inc. that the service(s) listed below will be deactivated and deleted if not renewed immediately.

As the Primary Contact, you must renew the service(s) listed below or it will be deactivated and deleted.

Renew Now your Google AdWords services. [link deleted]

SERVICE: Google AdWords
EXPIRATION: August, 19 2008

Thank you for using Google Inc service.
We appreciate your business and the opportunity to serve you.

Google AdWords Service .

Invitation to join Analytic Bridge

Analytic Bridge has grown from 20 to about 400 people in just one week. We invite you to revisit our network, and sign up if you are not already a member.

In the last seven days, we have added many groups, several white papers, dozens of useful links. Also, members have contributed to several forums, including

• Explanation of Variance Inflation Factor
  
• Data Validation
  
• Post your best graphs in our photo section
  
• How to produce nice graphs with R?
  
• Data Warehousing, ETL and Business Intelligence opportunites
  
• Professional Certificates (chartered statistician, SAS certified, series 6, etc.)
  
• Spatial ETL Pros Needed for Leader in Geographic Business Intelligence Solutions
  
• Genetic Data Mining Method for the Proper Use of the Correlation Coefficient
  
• Who makes $100K or more a year?
  
• Companies hiring statisticians and data miners
  
• Best books for learning data mining
  
• Basic Introduction to Text Mining
  
• Non-Linear ARIMA using neural nets?
  
• Statistics handbooks now available in the links section
  
• Jobs in Switzerland
  
• Interesting discussions on the Web Analytics group
  
• Data mining blog
  
• LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook and other networks
  
• Building Statistical Regression Models: Straight Data are Necessary
  
• Domain names for sale
  
• Career paths: switching to a different industry
  
• Generalized Goldbach Conjecture and Integer Coverages
  
• XML job feeds available for your blog
  
• Starting Salaries for Analytic Graduates
  
• Useful links
  
• Statistical Software - Comparative Analysis
  

To join Analytic Bridge, visit us at http://www.analyticbridge.com/. Members are also entitled to a 20% discount on all products available on DataShapingStore.com. Please contact us for details.

Vincent Granville, Ph.D.
Founder and Principal
http://www.datashaping.com/
http://www.analyticbridge.com/