That’s not even taking into account that a customer could accidentally leave one of those letters out…) I know there’s some anger against Wal*Mart for charging so much in fees – perhaps they’re using the fees to start a savings account to register all 37+ Trillion Domain names.
One could accidentally hit the wrong key while typing, so let’s put some high school math to the test here… 37,192,366,944,000 possible different combinations if customers mistype a letter (or 16) by hitting a key next to it. Here we are attacking a company for not buying up every possible mis-type and permutation of their web address (16 letters, any one could be left out, so there’s 16 possibilities there. If your write a check at Wal*Mart for $20 over and get the $20 cash back, then go outside and get ripped off by a scam artist who dupes you into willingly handing them your $20, is it Wal*Mart’s fault? It’s unreasonable to expect a company to plan around every stupid error their clients could possibly one day make. If a user does exactly what they’re supposed to do, they’ll be safe (well, unless there’s another way to get into the site that hasn’t been published).
It’s hardly breaking into the website when you hand over your password to someone else. I thought Wal*Mart’s website was not secure and one could break into it. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Ģ9 Responses to “WHY HACKERS LOVE WAL-MART MONEY CARDS…” You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. On Saturday, August 4th, 2007 at 1705 by Jeff Hess Imagine what the real crooks are thinking. Luckily for Walprivilegely World, I snagged those domains with the sole intent of using them as an example for this blog entry.Īnd see? You don’t even need a degree in Computer Science to do something like this. Missing the first letter of a domain is also pretty common. Just for good measure, I went ahead and registered today too.
There is nothing code-slingers like better than making a fool out of some arrogant suit.Īfter hearing about this new Walmart card and the accompanying website, I checked to see if they had registered and were forwarding over traffic from one of the most common typos: the full web address prefixed with a “Sure enough, So, I registered it. I’ve been hovering around the edges of computers for more than 30 years and one lesson I’ve learned is that the moment anyone claims to have created the unhackable you can start the countdown clock to when it will be, in fact, hacked. In Walmart’s infinite wisdom, they did no such thing. That’s why any security-minded company who wants to protect their customers and brand’s image would / should at the very least register all of the most common typo domains when setting up shop on a new domain – especially if it’s a financial kinda deal.
Your good ol’ Uncle Buck or Aunt Charlene who’s not too savvy on that there interweb, but falls perfectly into the demographic of folks who would have a Wally World prepaid money card, is likely to mistype the web address. I never said that they’d actually make it there. Yeah, so what? I said that all those evil evil bad bad things could happen to a person while trying to reach the site. It even has a nifty little seal on it from Thawte verifying that it’s protected by RC4 128-bit encryption. Why should Wal-Mart care about the security of your card after it collects the up-front fee you pay for the priveledge of loaning it money interest free? Here’s the problem. Why? Because Walmart, just like most companies, is nothing short of retarded when it comes to internet security and protecting their brand in the online world. Just like any other such card, it has a website where you can check your balance, add funds to your account, etc.Īlternatively, you can have your account information stolen, be exposed to hardcore XXX porn, or line the pockets of a bottom-feeding douche bag while trying to reach the site. I heard about Walmart’s new “Money Card†which is nothing more than a prepaid Visa card. The blogger at GhettoWebmaster dropped us a line to help spread the word that those Wal-Mart pre-paid Visa cards are not only financially a horrible idea, but that your money would be safer scattered in the street.