Visa phishing attack spotted

Security experts warned today that the Verified by Visa online authentication scheme has become the latest lure used by phishers hoping to harvest personal information from unsuspecting shoppers, reports Computing.co.uk.

The scam begins with users being sent an e-mail inviting them to join the scheme, but clicking on the link takes them to a fake site.

Andrew Brandt, a malware researcher at Webroot, explained in a blog post that the site then requests "all the information you gave the card-issuing bank at the time you first signed up for the credit card".

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has completed a sweep of illegal online pharmacies that targeted 136 Web sites that appeared to be illegally selling drugs to American consumers, writes The Register.

During the International Internet Week of Action campaign, the FDA issued 22 warning letters to operators of the Web sites. It also included notices to service providers and domain name registrars that their customers were selling pharmaceuticals in violation of US law.

"Many US consumers are being misled in the hopes of saving money by purchasing prescription drugs over the Internet from illegal pharmacies," said FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg. "Taking these drugs can pose a danger to consumers."

The e-mail system of one of the world's leading climate research units has been breached by hackers, says the BBC.

E-mails reportedly from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, including personal exchanges, appeared on the Internet on Thursday.

A university spokesman confirmed the e-mail system had been hacked and that information was taken and published without permission.

YouTube's parent company Google has announced on its blog that automatic captions are to begin to roll out across the site, reports the BBC.

The machine-generated captions will initially be in English. At first they will only be found on 13 channels, including National Geographic, Columbia, as well as most Google and YouTube channels.

The software engineer behind the technology, Ken Harrenstien, is deaf. YouTube currently offers a manual captioning service but video makers tend not to use it.