Global interest in the World Cup has brought with it major growth in online security threats. Four key players in particular should be carefully watched;
- Spam – Wearing the No.1 shirt is ‘World Cup’ themed spam, which is appearing everywhere online. Much of this is the expected marketing jargon, however there’s an additional increase in more malicious spam with malware intentions or carrying spyware.
- SEO Poisioning – Malicious websites are being more highly ranked in World Cup themed searches due to Search engine optimisation threats.
- Spear Phishing – This forceful player has specific targets, namely World Cup ticket holders or World Cup related businesses, with messages designed to lure them to malware laden sites.
- Social networks – The World Cup makes people talk hence social network sites being the perfect dummy for malware to be communicated through.
PDF attacks and Loss of productivity are additional security areas that all football mad fans should watch out for online!
Some of the subject lines that have been seen associated with this scam include:
- ***south africa 2010 fifa world cup lottery promotions***
- ,,,sa 2010 world cup lotto drew;;;;;;;
- claim your fifa world cup football award/ticket
- congratulation! you have won us$1,220,000.00 for soccer world cup 2010 promotional draw
- congratulation!!! for 2010 world cup promotion
- fifa 2010 world cup lottery department
- fifa-mtn world cup team official prize notification
- final notification for south africa fifa 2010 world cup lottery
- south africa 2010 world cup award notification!!!
- south african 2010 fifa world cup lottery award
- south african 2010 world cup bid lottery award
So like us at Maildistiller, keep one eye on the match and one sussing out the opposition! J
