As I've already posted elsewhere, there are reports of scammers spamming out solicitations for contributions to fake disaster relief funds, in the wake of the recent earthquake in New Zealand (not to mention the one that preceded it).
CAUCE has put up a short list of organizations providing aid known to be genuine, complete with the necessary banking details. See http://www.cauce.org/2011/02/dont-be-fooled-by-fake-new-zealand-earthquake-relief-spam.html.
As with the Haiti earthquake a year or so ago, I'll be looking out for reliable links and posting them here as opportunity allows.
Here's a PC World article that's ten years old, but still contains some good and relevant advice: http://www.pcworld.com/article/61946/beware_of_online_scams_for_disasterrelief_funds.html.
And our own Randy Abrams also offered some good advice four years ago when there were widespread fires in Southern California: https://www.welivesecurity.com/2007/10/24/dont-get-burned-twice. Which reminds me that http://www.charitynavigator.org/ is a good general resource for stuff like this, and has a specific page on this disaster at http://blog.charitynavigator.org/2011/02/new-zealand-earthquake.html.
NB that as pointed out at Charity Navigator and elsewhere, the New Zealand government is not appealing for help and few aid organizations are offering it at the moment.
David Harley CITP FBCS CISSP
ESET Senior Research Fellow
