Home › Community › Security Blog

Security Blog

 

Threat Lab Report: FIFA World Cup Fever Reaches Spammers and Your Mailboxes

Posted By Netgear Threat Lab at 4:05 PM, June 8, 2010

fifa.jpg With the 2010 FIFA World Cup closely approaching and the world going into a frenzy, spammers armed with malicious emails are also joining in on the festivities.

So far we've seen two types of these mal-emails:
The first is your typical Nigerian scam - The email claims that the recipient was just drawn as a winner in the online sweepstakes held by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA). In order to receive the winnings the victims are required to provide detailed personal information. Further emails will eventually require them to pay a fee to secure their winnings. The personal information provided will be used in a vast array of crimes such as identity theft, distribute spam, phishing, and other types of fraud.

The other type of spam contains a PDF attachment. The message body has content such as a detailed guide to South African tourism, ticketing services, and other information to induce the user to open the PDF attachment.
The PDF file actually contains malicious code that exploits a known vulnerability in Adobe Reader. Once the user opens the PDF, it will automatically download and install a variety of malware.

FIFA has recently alerted fans about similar online scams on their blog. With the start of the World Cup approaching in a couple of days, expect to see more and more of these scams.

Posted by: Netgear Threat Lab at 4:05 PM
Categories: Malware , Netgear Threat Lab , Phishing , Spam

No TrackBacks

TrackBack URL: http://prosecure.netgear.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/93

Comments