Leading Internet Security company Symantec has sent out a warning to internet users to be particularly alert to the dangers of internet scams and cyber crime during the upcoming World Cup finals in South Africa.
Warning that victims of cyber crime during the World Cup don’t have to to be in South Africa to be conned, Symantec say that criminals will be using the furore of the tournament to suck in victims globally.
Grant Brown of Symantec says;
“We saw a 60% increase in activities like phishing, web-based attacks and other cyber crime during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the Fifa World Cup is a considerably larger event. There will be at least one billion soccer fans actively following the event, which presents an opportunity for cyber-criminals.”
Brown says that criminlas tend to use topically related e mails to lure some of their victims, noting the recent disasters in Haiti and Chile as a case in point.
“Scam and phishing messages in February accounted for 19% of all spam. Spammers continued to use the earthquake in Haiti, and the recent earthquake in Chile, as another vector to utilise. They also used other current high-profile events, such as recent auto recalls, to deliver spam messages.” said Brown.
Symantec has launched a special website for the World Cup, where it will keep internet users up to date with related attacks.
Meanwhile they remind internet users to avoid clicking on suspicious links in email or instant messages.
Never fill out forms in messages that ask for personal or financial information or passwords, a reputable charitable organisation is unlikely to ask for your personal details via email.
When in doubt, contact the organisation in question through an independent, trusted mechanism, such as a verified telephone number, or a known internet address that you type into a new browser window. Do not click or cut and paste from a link in the message.
1 comment so far
1 Julia Maple // Mar 4, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Glad to hear that there are some means of informing people about the mechanisms of deceit in the Internet, in which, under the cover of anonymity, there are a lot of people to deceive their peers.