n.

1. Any of various large birds of prey of the New World family Cathartidae or of the Old World family Accipitridae, characteristically having dark plumage and a featherless head and neck and generally feeding on carrion.

2. A person of a rapacious, predatory, or profiteering nature.

The vulture has always boded evil and suffering. Of all the species of vultures out there, probably nothing is more dreaded than the human vultures. They seem to take pleasure and make profit in the suffering of their fellow human being. In the 21st century they are also hi-tech and use the last methods of people engineering. I don’t know if you have heard the term phishing. It is used to describe the act of duping information out of people. This has been a big problem especially in the US.

Usually phishers, send out emails to unsuspecting people with some outrageous offers asking them for their credit card and personal information. They also mask their emails to make it as though the email was coming from a legitimate source. All they need is to setup their website visually similar to the real ones. I have samples for the yahoo and hotmail login page that could get your email id when you type it in and send the details to me(or whoever has set it up). Now with the American people going all out to help the tsunami victims, these phishers have got into the act. Yesterday Mastercard announced that they found 133 cases of Tsunami related phishing. Now the FBI along with Mastercard and other member banks have setup a task force to catch these phishers. To you my loyal readers please follow these following guidelines that could prevent you from falling into this trap.

· Be wary of phishing e-mail. Banks do not contact customers to ask

them to provide sensitive information such as passwords and PINs online.

Look for indications such as spelling and grammatical errors that expose

the e-mail as being not genuine.

· Do not click hastily on links appearing in incoming e-mails and

provide payment card or other personal information. Make it a practice to

connect to an institution’s Web site only by directly typing the

institution’s valid Web address into the Web browser.

· Notify your bank and local law enforcement authorities promptly by

forwarding suspicious phishing-type e-mails. This action will help shut

down the fake Web site and to take action against the criminals.

· Monitor the transactions appearing on your statements, and quickly

report suspicious transactions to your bank.

· Change passwords and PINs periodically.

· Install anti-spam and firewall software on your personal computer to

stop receiving spam and to prevent unauthorized access.

· Turn off your computer when not in use, to avoid criminals gaining

access and misusing it for fraudulent purposes, which includes launching

phishing attacks.

· If you suspect that you have become a victim of a phishing attack and

already have divulged your sensitive account information to fraudsters,

please contact your bank immediately to discuss the appropriate remedial

action.

· Continue to monitor your statement for unauthorized transactions, if

your account is not closed.

· Regularly obtaining personal credit reports from all three credit

reporting agencies and carefully reviewing the information. Question – and

correct – any inaccuracies. The contact information for the credit

reporting agencies is:

· Equifax, call (800)-525-6285 and write: P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA

30374-0241

· Experian, call (888)-397- 3742 and write: P.O. Box 949,

· Allen TX 75013-0949

· TransUnion (800)-680-7289 and write: Fraud Victim Assistance

Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834

Laters…

I know I slacked off the last two days. Been a little busy at work. Had a Server SCSI controller crash on me yesterday and had to be at the office for more than 15 hours straight. To top it all off the weather forecast said that it was supposed to be a dry night but it snowed so much that my car was buried three inches deep in the company’s parking lot. Well I did get a jalepenos pizza for staying so late at the office. And to those who don’t know I love to look at snow, it so pretty et all but I can live without it. I would rather see it on TV than on my car.

Now that I have rambled on about all that could have been done before and after the tsunami. Lets just talk about what has been done so far. The public outpouring from all over the world, has been so unprecedented that it would make the most ardent pessimist an optimist. People in all walks of life around the world have tried to do the best that they could do to help out in whatever way they could. The other day I met an old lady at the Hyundai service center who said that they were collecting money by dressing up (If any one wants to come to office in casuals, the person has to make a contribution). Mastercard doubles any contribution that we make to the tsunami relief fund.

Even in the tsunami affected areas it has brought together people from all walks of life to face this great tragedy. There have been instances where the local church, mosque or temple has buried the people of different religions. It has been rightly said that adversity brings out the best in people.

On a personal note, a foundation called Falcon foundation, to provide long term rehabilitation to the children of the tsunami has been started by me and a group of friends. I am very excited about all that we are planning to do for them.

“We Make a Living by what we Get

but we make a Life by what we give”