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Spammers Exploited Credit Crunch During May 2008

The Symantec Researchers said that spammers are exploiting slow economy to push the monetary services scams to unwary users. They also added that financial spam emerged during May 2008 as users found latest methods to settle debt and money. Petrol discounts and fake real estate services were the famous scams, as reported by Vnunet on June 6, 2008.

Symantec also informed that many spam mails exploited services to assist homeowners handle their mortgages and ignore foreclosure. The petrol spam was pointed toward coupons and cards programmes which claim to offer discount at the pumps and tools that claim to offer users with efficient mileage.

Symantec also witness spammers capitalizing on the slow economy to steal private data. Also, the mails are designed to deceive users who are under heavy monetary pressures in today's economic market and also capitalize on the economic situation.

The attackers also exploited the latest events. During May 2008, the popular phishing attacks were mails, which appear to have come from the Internal Revenue Service of US. The mails were created for the 'stimulus payments' being made to taxpayers during this year. The spammers directed the user to divulge their financial data to obtain the payment.

Further, the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in China gave many opportunities to hackers to fool the innocent users. After both the natural calamities, Symantec noted 419 scams and series of an unauthentic charity. Another scam used the UEFA Champions league final. The users were lured to give their private details to a fake travel agency, which claimed to sell tickets for the game.

The Symantec Researchers claimed that undoubtedly, spear phishing is not a new occurrence but it is a trend that has got substantial prominence recently. Also, it differs from other forms of phishing attacks because it attacks only a specific people and companies.

Symantec also found that some enterprises became victims of spear phishing attack which claimed to be from the US District Court. It read like that the user was "HERBY COMMANDED" to appear and testify before the Grand Jury of the US District Court at the place, date, time given below. And if the user replies the mail, he downloads the keystroke logging Trojan.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

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