As usual spammers show no morals

By admin | May 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment

When you watch the internet security landscape few tactics that the ‘bad-guys’ use really surprise you. Spammers and those Phishing for our personal details always use whatever hook they can think of to snare the unsuspecting and unwary. Often they use world news, major sporting events or even disasters to try and trap us.

So I am not surprised to see that now spammers are now spreading their wares using the backdrop of the latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) that say that there are at least 170 million diabetic patients worldwide, and that number will double by the year 2030.

My colleague Mayur Kulkarni from the Symantec Security Response team reports that spammers are replicating diabetes offers from genuine medical suppliers to snare the unwary into giving over their personal details such as name, email address, and phone number. Spammers are a crafty lot, they use the real medical supplier’s details, their fake website is made to look and feel like the real thing, and they even ensure the genuine supplier name appears either in the subject line or sender field of the message.

Once again the rule of the game is to always type legitimate URLs directly into the browser address bar when ordering supplies – otherwise not only do you risk receiving fake and potentially dangerous products from an unscrupulous operator, but you might also find your personal details have been harvested.

For more ways to avoid Phishing attacks check out this simple video.

Dominic Cook

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