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Fraudsters have upped the ante in their fight to discredit a respected UK-based anti-fraud website.

The email address of Bobbear.co.uk, which fights phishing fraud by exposing groups attempting to recruit money mules, was spoofed in obscene emails. The Joe Job attack represents a further attempt to make life difficult for Bobbear.co.uk, which operates on a voluntary basis, and site administrator Bob Harrison.

Just over a week ago the site came under a sustained denial of service attack, which remains ongoing despite largely successful attempts by BobBear in cooperation with ISP Fasthosts to minimise the effect of the assault. "The DDOS continues and the criminals are also now attempting to hurt me by spoofing my email addresses to send obscene emails," reports Harrison. "These are nothing to do with me and have not come from me or my domain. This is called a 'Joe Job'. Do not be fooled by them - simply discard them or use SpamCop to report the source IP. Oh, and I DO NOT send out newsletters - it's the same spoofed spam from the same criminals."

As well as forcing Bobbear to field angry messages about the junk mail and complaints the Joe Job email run has led to thousands of bounce-back messages from spoofed emails sent to non-existent addresses, clogging up the site's mail server.

Forged emails supposedly from Bobbear have been used in an attempt to discredit the site in the past. In October 2007, a spam run sought to ruin the reputation of Bobbear by bombarding intenet users with supposed begging request. In truth the junk mail messages, asking for donations through online payment service e-Gold, were nothing to do with Bobbear.co.uk. Fasthosts temporarily suspended Bobbear.co.uk in response to complaints over these emails at the time but have been far more supportive since, for example going out of their way to get the site up and running during the latest Job Job attacks, Harrison told El Reg. ®

Full article here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11...bbear_joe_job/