(full story with screencaps and comments at link)

Gone phishing with eBay

Why is there a naked woman in that Bentley?

By Mark Whitehorn More by this author
Published Friday 25th May 2007 22:38 GMT

There I was, on Monday night, scanning eBay for car bits. This is not a problem. I have this under complete control. I can give up buying worn out parts and rusty bits of bodywork at any time. Really.

Anyway, I spotted a real bargain, a 2007 Bentley Continental for 0.01 GBP. Since these usually retail for something in the region of £135,000 I felt that this represented a considerable saving.

Unusually for the vendor of such a prestigious vehicle, the listor had decided to post an image of a young lady in place of the car itself. I reasoned that perhaps this was his daughter and the picture was meant to show that his family also loved the car.

Screenshot showing the Bentley advert.

True, my theory didnt entirely explain why she was naked to the waist but I clicked on the link anyway, hoping to acquire a bargain.

Several screens flashed before my eyes (unnervingly like my life going past) and then good old IE7 told me that I was about to be phished. It was quite correct, I was very phished (or, as we say in the UK, phished off). How come I could be browsing eBay one moment and phished the next?

Screenshot showing the phishing alert.

The URL is:

http://ww.eb4y.cgl-bin.confirm-verify.534413cfg5.valid.i8.com/main.html?

SignIn&co_partnerId=2&pUserId=&siteid=0&pageType=&pa1=&i1=&bshowgif=&Using

SSL=&ru=&pp=&pa2=&errmsg=&runame=&ruparams=&ruproduct=&sid=&favoritenav=&c

onfirm=&ebxPageType=&existingEmail=&isCheckout=&migrateVisitor=&SignIn&co

_partnerId=2&pUserId=&siteid=0&pageType=&pa1=&i1=&bshowgif=&UsingSSL=&ru=&

pp=&pa2=&errmsg=&runame=&ruparams=&ruproduct=&sid=&favoritenav=&confirm=&e

bxPageType=&existingEmail=&isCheckout=&migrateVisitor=

My journalistic instincts were, inevitably, hooked and I decided to investigate but first, I reported the incident to eBay to try to ensure that other poor fish were not landed in the same way. The time was 21:54.

The first step was to try to isolate the problem was it my machine or eBay? I emailed one of my long suffering Reg. Developer editors (David Norfolk) who, despite the time, obligingly tried the same listing and got the same result. So, it could be malicious code on the PC but both David and I would have to be infected in the same way; possible, but unlikely.

By repeatedly pressing PrtScr I managed to obtain a screen shot of the listing itself as it flashed past.

Screenshot showing the listing itself.

For those without a microscope, the bottom of the screen reads as:

Screenshot showing detail from Figure 3.

Weve blanked the identity of the seller because it is highly likely that he/she is innocent and the account was hijacked (see the response from eBay below).

Question - How do you hijack an eBay account in order to go phishing?

Answer - By phishing.

(Dictionary definition of recursion - see recursion.)

A little more investigation showed that the listings werent just aimed at potential Bentley owners.

Screenshot showing more dud adverts.

At about 00:15 Tuesday morning the listings finally disappeared.

Naturally, we were keen to find out what had happened: we had some evidence, including the source code of the original page, so we contacted eBay. The companys response was interesting. We first contacted it on Tuesday and, despite repeated requests, found it very difficult to get any hard information.

Eventually, on Friday afternoon, as we were going to press, we received the following:

In this particular case, a genuine user's eBay account was taken over by fraudsters who attempted to use it to post fraudulent listings. eBays systems identified the fraudulent listing and eBays customer support team moved quickly to remove it from the site and restore the account to its rightful owner. eBay takes any threat to the security of its users extremely seriously and we also work closely with ISPs and law enforcement to bring down the spoof websites we identify."

It would appear that this statement corroborates what we observed; nevertheless it is worth examining the statement in detail.

For a start, whilst it is true to say fraudsters who attempted .. to post fraudulent listing; more information is conveyed by the equally true statement fraudsters who succeeded . in posting fraudulent listings.

Secondly, there is no information here about the eBay systems that identified the fraudulent listing. Is it simply the feedback from users or are there also algorithmic systems that prowl the system looking for naughtiness?

Lets assume for a minute that eBay does have effective internal systems for detecting fraudulent listings. In that case it would be far, far better for the users of eBay if these ran proactively, before the listing was posted. If on the other hand eBay doesnt have such systems and relies on user feedback to identify fraudulent listings, the implication is that we can expect fraudulent listings to be up for an unknown period of time before removal. As a user of eBay are you happy about this? Im not.

Thirdly, it took eBay at least two hours to respond to this after it was reported. Do you consider this to be moving quickly?

As we were trying to find out exactly what had happened, an apparently related incident was also brewing.

The bottom line is that the evidence we have seen suggests that it may be possible for users to post listings on eBay that redirect off the site.

It ought to go without saying, but well do it anyway. Be careful out there.

well, at least one person we know is happy about this.
Hi SKEETER

uh... didn't I just read something right here on CAPP recently about the Pro-Paypal bored trolls using some sort of porn-related IPs or proxies to post with?

What a bunch of sleazeballs they really are, eh?

...And all those times they had the audacity to dare call this fine board "vulgar".

HRRRRMMMPPPHHHHH!!!!

As far as I know, we have not had any news coverage about porn on CAPP.
Meanwhile, everywhere you turn these days there is something about ebay and porn, all the way down to IT's most viral supporter's vocations and pasttimes.

BTW, Plenty of people have now viewed the "hookers XXS redirect" videos now, and the counts are getting bigger and bigger everyday, along with the "ebay is hacked the hookers attack" vid on youtube.

moving on,
Looking at some of the postings by that person over there, it sure seems plain rude, false,  and very often just downright * creepy.

BTW Dan, maybe you should open a blog and post the facts for the world to see. (or make a video and post it to youtube)

* Thanks to imageshack.us for free photohosting

IceBlueEyes wrote:

---

I wonder which porn site is Megs.

---

One assumes the Tranny site is her's.

Meg Whitman - Male or Female 

 

Porn in the Toddler Clothing section:

For whatever reason, the phake sign in page did not render properly.

I had my NoScript options set for meta-redirects dis-allowed, and scripts NOT running for any ebay domains.

When I clicked ignore, well you see the result.

 

Yep, here they struck again earlier this evening.

I also captured it with ZDSoft screen recorder 2.6.2.

That video will be getting uploaded.

Further more regular hijacking vids are going onto youtube.
Lots and lots more.

I wonder whether anyone at sleazebay is reading along?

mu-ahahahaha!!!

CHUMPS!!!

More porno re-directs on ebay right now.

Going staright to video, and "elsewhere"


CHUMPS!!!


Bwhahahahahahahhahaha!!!