FINCEN bogus email
Posted By: Anonymous
FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:01 PM
Has anyone else just gotten a bizarre email supposedly from Fincen with a message from a child in IRAQ with pictures attached. The email address is
Fincennnews@fincen.gov.I don't believe this is really from Fincen!!!
Everyone on the QuikNews distribution list must have received it. Clearly, FinCEN is not the source; someone hijacked their mailing list.
Posted By: Tesla
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:17 PM
Does anyone else find that a little scary? I mean FinCEN's computers being hijacked?
Posted By: BankerMama
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:20 PM
It shook me up a little. Kinda like a threat. I called FinCEN but have had no response.
Posted By: Tesla
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:22 PM
I'd be interested to hear what they say. Please post their response, if you get one!
Follow-up message received from QuikNews:
FinCEN QuikNews recipients:
You may have received a message this morning which appeared to originate from FinCEN’s QuikNews system. This message was not sent by FinCEN and we are currently investigating its origin.
Posted By: BankerMama
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:28 PM
They called me back to confirm that it did not come from them and gave instructions not to reply and not to forward.......just delete it.
Posted By: homestar
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:29 PM
FinCEN is saying to not reply to the message and ignore it.
I think it's important that you do not reply to the message. There is a "reply to address" in the message, but it does not go back to FinCEN. If you reply, you will confirm to whoever spoofed this message that (1) you actually received it; and (2) your email address is legitimate.
Also, please be careful with any speculation about how or why this happened. Remember, everyone in the world with internet access can potentially read this thread.
Posted By: BankerMama
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:33 PM
Right.. It could just be a prankster not terrorist. It still unnerved me.
Posted By: Anonymous
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:35 PM
I placed a call to FINCEN and have received a response from them that they are aware of this and DO NOT want to receive anymore phone calls. FINCEN has also sent out an email concerning this bogus message.
Posted By: Anonymous
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:36 PM
I was even skeptical of the second email, "improtant"?
Posted By: MackenzieS
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:40 PM
The way my email is set up I can't see what the pictures are. What is it? I thought the subject line sounded very unprofessional (coming from FinCEN), therefore not believing it was legit. I went to FinCEN's website and I haven't seen anything about it.
Posted By: homestar
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:43 PM
The message contains an image of someone cleaning up what appears to be huge pool of blood on a street and there is an image of a small apparently injured child laying on a bed.
Second message carries the standard physical appearance and formatting. Elapsed time between the two messages was 31 minutes. That's pretty good by anyone's standards.
Posted By: MackenzieS
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:57 PM
Quote:
The message contains an image of someone cleaning up what appears to be huge pool of blood on a street and there is an image of a small apparently injured child laying on a bed.
Ewwwwww! I'm glad my email blocks pictures. 
Posted By: MagicCity
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 02:59 PM
I got one only so far.
Awful stuff!
I forwarded mine to the Webmaster at FinCEN.
Posted By: Anonymous
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 03:36 PM
I called FINCEN and they say it is under investagation now. also when I tried to unsubsribed it would'nt let me but it would let me send a reply???
Just delete the bogus message; do not respond to any of the options it offers and do not forward it. They know they have a problem.
Posted By: homestar
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 04:18 PM
Quote:
I called FINCEN and they say it is under investagation now. also when I tried to unsubsribed it would'nt let me but it would let me send a reply???
You don't need to unsubscribe from FinCEN's QuickNews list. As Ken says, all you need to do is simply delete the message.
Posted By: Anonymous
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 04:22 PM
Did you get FinCEN's email about 20 minutes following the bogus one stating that email did not come from them and that they were checking into it to see where it did come from? Whoever said this was "scary" was right - this is a little un-nerving.
FinCEN response. Note the chasm between QuikNews and the sensitive data bases.
Posted By: Big Dog
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 05:42 PM
I wonder if they are going to file a SAR for the system intrusion?
Posted By: Anonymous
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 06:15 PM
Maybe they should have done more due diligence and monitoring of their email service provider....
Posted By: homestar
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 07:12 PM
Thanks for the information, Ken. This is very good news indeed. I hope they are able to catch the people who sent the message.
Posted By: Nanwa
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/23/05 08:10 PM
Just goes to show ya that no one is completely safe. I am sure FINCEN has state of the art protocols and protection in place, but whatever can be done can be undone. Hackers will find a way.
Web site was simply inaccessible yesterday. This morning all you can get to is:
Due to an incident involving the “FinCEN QuikNews” e-mail service, www.fincen.gov , a public website of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), is unavailable at this time. Please check back soon as we plan to make the site publicly available in the near future. We will also post updates on the incident involving the FinCEN QuikNews service as information becomes available. We sincerely regret this incident and any inconvenience it may cause.
There is also an
UPDATE at the bottom of that page. Please read it. No personal information was compromised, but they do not intend to use the list again.
Posted By: Retired DQ
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/26/05 01:10 PM
Does this mean there iwll be no more Fincen email alerts?
Quote:
While we anticipate reinstituting a notification service in the future, it will not be done using the current mailing list, therefore it will not be necessary to unsubscribe from the system.
At least not as "Quik News." I have no doubt they will develop a replacement service of some kind, but it may be necessary to re-register when they roll it out.
Posted By: Retired DQ
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/26/05 01:19 PM
Doh, it would probably help if I really read the thread...
Thanks, Ken...
Posted By: Sunshine_101
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 09/26/05 08:51 PM
I think that if you read the email you would figure out that it's not blood, its oil
Posted By: jap
Re: FINCEN bogus email - 01/11/06 08:34 PM
Have they developed another email service yet? Do we need to re-register? I've looked over the FinCEN site but can't find anything.