Your Cyber Intelligence Source

UPDATE: Thawte canceled its services to InternationalDrugMart.com in late May. Cyveillance commends Thawte for doing the right thing. More on the story here.

In our recent post covering the Canadian Health & Care Mall, we highlighted the great lengths to which illegal online pharmacies will go to present the illusion of legitimacy. Site like the Canadian Health & Care Mall will present false business locations, and falsified certificates of approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to add credibility, and visitors will believe that they’ll be safe when they order medications from the site.

Another common tactic on sites like Canadian Health & Care Mall is to present fake Verisign Seals. While many consumers don’t know exactly what having a Verisign Seal means, they do know it increases the likelihood that transactions with that site are safe. So while some rogue pharmacies will go the extra step of creating fake Site Seals, unfortunately it appears that this is not always necessary, as some Site Seal issuers do not have a problem working with websites that illegally sell prescription drugs without a prescription.

This week International Drug Mart, a rogue online pharmacy that sells prescription drugs without a prescription from a medical professional, announced that it had “chosen Thawte, since it is a leading global certificate authority providing online security to millions all over the world”.

The Thawte Site Seal can be seen on the rogue online pharmacy site in this image:

…and the following image shows Thawte’s acknowledgement that International Drug Mart uses secure communications.

Unfortunately while the this rogue online pharmacy may appear to protect its customers’ payment information, the fact remains that it unlawfully and dangerously offers prescription medications to anyone with a credit card. It is surprising that a seemingly legitimate company would be knowingly associated with such a business, much less a company in the security industry. By doing so, it undermines their own credibility and diminishes consumer trust and confidence in their own site seal.

Cyveillance has reached out to Thawte for a response on the matter but has not yet received a reply. We welcome their comments.

Earlier this week the Partnership for Safe Medicines posted an interesting piece detailing how a sales affiliate of a known rogue pharmacy is using twitter to promote its offerings. That account is of course disturbing not only because it promotes a website which allows consumers to buy medicines like accutane without a prescription, but each posting on that twitter account appears to have been made in an automated fashion via twitter’s API. This suggests a level of sophistication above that of the average webmaster’s.

As troubling as these reports are, we should not be surprised. When there is money to be made, criminals will take the steps necessary to gain every advantage possible. A Russian online pharmacy network called RX Partners (also known as StimulCash) has been publishing content using social media formats for some time. Note the examples of the RX Partners blog, forum, wiki, and twitter account below.

As of this writing, there are 1,165 subscribers to their blog according to Feedburner.

The RX Partners blog offers professional advice on how to market an online pharmacy using black hat search engine optimization techniques, general advice for online pharmacy webmasters, and of course, announces their upcoming retreat for their affiliates in on the mediterranean: a four day vacation in a five star hotel in the Turkish port Antalya.

The RX Partners online forum offers English, Russian, and Spanish sections for its affiliates.

The busy, closed forum allows online pharmacy webmasters to share techniques and has over 1,300 registered users.

If you are an affiliate in the RX Partners network with technical expertise, you can contribute on their wiki.

Learn how to integrate illegal online pharmacy sales into one’s WordPress using this wiki example.

And of course, RX-Partners has its own twitter page as well. At the time of this writing they have 1,071 followers.

Don’t think their use of social media is meant only to spread information among their sales affiliates. The modern online pharmacy template from this crew encourages visitors to take advantage of social media sites to spread the word about the pharmacy itself, promoting the sale of products that have not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration like chewable or “soft” Viagra.

Visitors to this online pharmacy are encouraged to share it with friends using Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, and other popular sites.

Cyveillance endorses the Partnership for Safe Medicine’s call for internet companies to do a better job of removing unlawful content from their sites. Content like online pharmacy marketing on popular social media sites endangers a public that may be easily deceived by slick marketing but delivers a host of dangers, like counterfeit, stolen, and unapproved medicines.