{"id":12743,"date":"2018-07-06T10:17:05","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T18:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2018\/07\/06\/news-6511\/"},"modified":"2018-07-06T10:17:05","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T18:17:05","slug":"news-6511","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2018\/07\/06\/news-6511\/","title":{"rendered":"ExxonMobil Bungles Rewards Card Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:53:19 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Energy giant ExxonMobil<\/strong> recently sent snail mail letters to its Plenti rewards card<\/a> members stating that the points program was being replaced with a new one called Exxon Mobil Rewards+<\/strong>. Unfortunately, the letter includes a confusing toll free number and directs customers to a parked page that tries to foist Web browser extensions on visitors.<\/p>\n

The mailer (the first page of which is screenshotted below) urges customers to visit exxonmobilrewardsplus[dot]com, to download its mobile app, and to call “1-888-REWARD+” with any questions. It may not be immediately obvious, but that “+” sign is actually the same thing as a zero on the telephone keypad (although I’m ashamed to say I had to look that up online to be sure). \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Anyone curious enough to guess at other ending numbers other than zero will wind up at a call center advertising “free” Caribbean (1) cruises or at a pricey adult chat service dubbed “America’s hottest talk line” (6).<\/p>\n

Worse, visiting the company’s new rewards Web site in Google Chrome prompted my browser to run a “security check,” followed by a series of popups offering to install a Chrome extension called “Browsing Safely.”<\/p>\n

That extension changes your default search engine to Yahoo and appears to redirect all searches through a domain called lastlog[dot]in, which seems to be affiliated with an Israeli online advertising network<\/a>.\u00a0After adding the Browsing Safely extension to Chrome using a virtual machine, my browser was redirected to Exxon.com.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Google Chrome extension offered when I first visited exxonmobilrewardsplus-dot-com.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Many people on Twitter who expressed confusion about the mailer said they accidentally added an “e” to the end of “exxonmobil” and ended up getting bounced around to spammy-looking sites with ad redirects and dodgy download offers.<\/p>\n

ExxonMobil corporate has not yet responded to requests for comment. But after about 10 minutes on hold listening to the same Muzak-like song, I was able to reach a customer service person at the confusing ExxonMobil Rewards+ phone number. That person said the Web site for the rewards program wasn’t going to be active until July 11.<\/p>\n

“Currently the Web site is not available,” the representative said. “Please don’t try to download anything from it right now. It should be active and available next week.”<\/p>\n

It always amazes me when major companies roll out new marketing initiatives without consulting professionals who help mitigate security and privacy issues for a living. It seems likely that happened in this case because anyone who knows a thing or two about security would strongly advise against instructing customers to visit a parked domain or one that isn’t yet fully under the company’s control.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/krebsonsecurity.com\/feed\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2018 15:53:19 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Energy giant ExxonMobil recently sent snail mail letters to its Plenti rewards card members stating that the points program was being replaced with a new one called Exxon Mobil Rewards+. Unfortunately, the letter includes a confusing toll free number and directs customers to a parked page that tries to foist Web browser extensions on visitors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[10643,10642],"tags":[16740,18907,18908,18909,17061],"class_list":["post-12743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-independent","category-krebs","tag-a-little-sunshine","tag-exxonmobil","tag-exxonmobil-rewards","tag-plenti","tag-the-coming-storm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}