Bogus Twitter Alerts Conceal Spam From Pharmaceutical Site

Security researchers at Sophos a major security company caution users that spam mails are surging afresh pretending to be "alert messages" from Twitter; however, they're in reality junk e-mails that a pharmaceutical firm is sending.

The malicious e-mails display the caption "You have 3 warning(s) from Twitter!" while spoofing the sender's address as twitter-warning-[recipient]@postmaster.twitter.com that suggests their source of origin as 'Twitter.'

Moreover, the web-links embedded on the e-mails don't connect with Twitter.com. By using HTML, the spammers try to give the impression that the web-links lead onto Twitter. However, for the recipient, who hurriedly follows the link abandoning caution, he's led onto the website of a Canadian pharma firm named "Canadian Health&Care Mall" that presents concessions on Cialis, Viagra, as well as many other medications.

Said Senior Technology Consultant Graham Cluley at Sophos, albeit there could be chances of the firm being authentic, how it treated the credit card details of users could be easily guessed. Security News Daily published this on November 3, 2010.

Cluley further warned that if anybody bought medications from any such website, he'd potentially risk his physical well-being in addition to risking his private information. He recalled how the bad guys spammed messages as well as employed nasty tricks for their websites' promotion, therefore they couldn't be trusted with shying away from treating users' credit card information maliciously, he added.

Meanwhile, security researchers caution that as Twitter and Facebook the popular social-networking websites grow in popularity, it is hardly strange that cyber-criminals will try to exploit it. As instant updates that may be sent from pals online prove an addiction to large masses of people, there's hardly any doubt that numerous individuals will follow web-links seemingly exchanged on these networks with barely thinking about it twice.

Hence, it's advisable that users remain vigilant while handling e-mails, which have links or attachments, despite their origin seeming to be some genuine source. Also, they must always brush their mouse on the link to check where it really takes to. And suppose it does not lead onto the website it promises, then most probably the electronic mail represents a scam.

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» SPAMfighter News - 11/11/2010