Fake certificate scam

By CHRIS BARTON

IT employers may need to double-check the qualifications of recent employees because of a New Zealand fraudster offering fake computer certificates.

The fraudster, who goes by the name of ccking, offered computer course certificates for sale in November in an online forum on the Shadowcrew website.

Courses on offer included Microsoft Certified Professional (US$250), Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (US$1400), Cisco Certified Network Associate (US$600) and Cisco Certified Network Professional (US$2200).

The scam involves someone else sitting the exams for the buyer at one of the Prometric testing centres around the country. The testing centres require two forms of identification for those sitting tests.

But ccking and others at Shadowcrew create fake IDs using the buyer's picture and ID card.

A New Zealand "white hat" hacker who has been tracking ccking because he also sells credit-card "dumps" alerted the Herald to his certification offers.

The white hat, a hacker who uses his skills to help organisations defend themselves better, said he had passed on information about ccking, who is based in Auckland, to a major credit-card company.

The www.ccking.com site describes a dump as "the total contents of the magnetic strip of a credit card. It includes the card number and a special security code known as DIS".

Advised of ccking's fake certificates, Prometric marketing co-ordinator Sharon Bowman said: "Prometric is in no way connected with this web site. There are many scam web sites on the internet. We will pass this information on to the certification community."

A thread on a Shadowcrew forum shows at least one has already taken up ccking's offer for a Microsoft Certified Professional certificate. In a "review" of ccking's services Shadowcrew member "enkrypt" indicates he has secured an McP for an associate.

Shadow Crew

Prometric