The Most Successful Period for Cyber Criminals

It’s not a surprise that all the cyber criminals use holidays or other special occasions to increase the distribution of their threats. When the biggest holiday of the year is over, spammers are looking forward to the future events and plan their attacks worldwide. Such happenings like Valentine’s Day or FIFA World Cup are those that PC users should note as the next waves of online robberies. Keep in mind that tons of malware, like fake on-line scanners and insecure websites, phishing and spam will be definitely produced trying to rip you off.

Unfortunately, some of the tactics mentioned above have already been used on the Web though events will start only after a month. According to computer experts, the UK’s Scotland Yard cyber police have detected over 100 scams that all are related to World Cup. Misleading emails mostly say that people have won the 2010 World Cup lottery which is sponsored by such giant companies like Microsoft, Coca Cola or Nokia. However, it’s not true, so do not pass over any your personal information of any kind!

Moreover, anti-spam researchers at Trend Micro have also reported about the spam messages purporting to come from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. These messages are named as “W-2 Form update” and informs victims that they have to make updates of employee’s annual salary and total tax. Users are encouraged to open the attached .RTF file which in reality is .EXE file belonging to the malicious Darkmoon Remote Administration Tool.

What’s the reason of all these tactics used by the cyber criminals? Sometimes they seek to push people into purchasing the malware, sometimes they set up the scams to get users’ sensitive personal information. They use such information for one of the fastest growing cyber crime these days – identity theft. Computer experts recommend not opening any emails that look suspiciously. What is more, avoiding insecure websites and keeping your security software up to date is also very important if you want to keep your PC clean. Be aware of all those cyber criminals and don’t spread your personal information to anyone you don’t know.

Sources:

blog.trendmicro.com; www.worldcup2010southafrica.com

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