Cyber Criminals Using Hurricane Gustav, Hanna to Attack Users

According to reports coming in from the US and across the world, cyber crooks have found a new media event - Hurricane Gustav that caused havoc in the US and left millions homeless - to attack unsuspecting users.

Security analysts state that cyber crooks throughout the world are exploiting the news about Louisiana Hurricane to deceive users into giving charity to disaster hit victims. They have created phishing and spamming Websites with domains appearing to belong to legitimate charities.

Moreover, while cyber criminals are targeting Internet users with their spamming and phishing sites, Hurricane Hanna that developed on September 1, 2005 near the Bahamas is anticipated to emerge as a big pool of fake news and charity Websites befooling donators and exploiting the disaster.

While the increasing number of cyber criminals, including spammers and phishers, are registering their domains to deceive users, SANS, an online security firm, and the US Company Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) have repeatedly warned users about the upsurge in fake domain registrations that target people who donate online to relief funds for helping people hit by the recent natural disaster.

Security analysts and researchers along with the US-CERT stated that many of these fake Websites are linked to malicious Web pages hosting botnets and malware, or operated by organized criminal groups. Generally, users enter their credit card details in these sites thinking that they are donating to a legitimate charity organization. But in reality, they hand over their sensitive details to the cyber criminals who misuse it for swindling money.

Marcus, Director of the Internet Storm center, SANS, said in the SANS Institute blog that a large number of the registered domains associated with hurricane Hanna and Gustav were meant for knowing sales status or are linked to IP addresses popular for hosting Trojans, spyware and other malevolent software, as reported by ChannelWeb on September 2, 2008.

Meantime, security experts suggested Internet users not to open any link or Web page encouraging for giving charity. In addition, users should use content filtering system to safeguard themselves against such attacks.

Related article: Cyber Child abuser Sentenced To Imprisonment

» SPAMfighter News - 9/8/2008