BNSF News

Employees Reminded to Stay Focused on Safety on the Job, Security of BNSF Assets

2009-11-19

With Thanksgiving and the end-of-year holidays approaching, remember to stay focused on safety and asset security.

The holiday season is a busy time for BNSF, retailers and scammers. The scammers will try to take advantage of anyone who may be distracted or who feels more charitable at this time of the year.

A current exploit involves hijacked Facebook accounts. This scam starts with malicious e-mail containing links to sites that enable the spammer to capture the Facebook account information. With that information, the scammer will contact the Facebook friends of the hijacked account with a sad story of being stranded in another country and in need of money. This scam has extended to hijacked Yahoo e-mail accounts. BNSF users have reported receiving these scam e-mails in their BNSF e-mail.

This scam is prevalent enough that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) issued a warning about the threat. The FBI warning noted that the number of hijacked accounts has increased dramatically with 3,200 cases reported since 2006. Many more have probably gone unreported. The FBI recommends that if you think your account has been hijacked, immediately warn your friends and family. If you find yourself on the receiving end of an urgent request for financial assistance from a Facebook friend, confirm the friend's identity before wiring any money.

BNSF's Enterprise Security team offers the following suggestions to protect you and BNSF from malicious e-mails and other online risks.

• Be suspicious of e-mails that urgently request action, sensitive personal information or money.
• Do not open attachments or click links in unfamiliar e-mails, as they may place malicious programs on your computer.
• Verify links to Web sites in e-mails, and then key in the URL address yourself.
• Avoid filling out forms contained in an e-mail message or in pop-ups that appear over a legitimate company's Web site.
• Banks, credit unions, credit card companies, E*Trade, the Internal Revenue Service and other reputable organizations will not send an e-mail to your BNSF or other e-mail account unless you specified that e-mail address in your account profile.
• Delete suspicious e-mails or forward them for review to SPAM@BNSF.com.

BNSF Headquarters

For more information on the company and its transportation solutions, visit the BNSF Web site at www.bnsf.com