Fake Gift Cards Masquerading Amazon Traps Users in Scam

Festive season is associated with the gesture of generosity. Taking advantage of this tradition and attacking the expectation of people, scammers have regulated one more phishing campaign in air, as revealed by the security firm AppRiver.

The messages are targeting Amazon as evident from the [Gift_Card(dot)exe] attached in the mail. A well planned fake message integrated Trojan downloader that belong "Yakes" (also known as Dofoil).belonging to the virus

A catchy subject line "Your gift card order" is enough to attract recipients to open the mail and further it also entails them with the information that they have received a gift card worth $250, which is valid till December 7. It urges the recipients to take the full advantage of the offer as the shipment will be totally free of cost.

The offer of the gift card is totally fraudulent and a click on the fake link in anticipation of the offer, invites the installation of Trojan downloader in their computer.

Security experts confide that these types of threats are extremely popular with the holiday season. Scammers are also smart to use social networking sites like facebook or twitter for the familiarity of these sites.

Starbucks-themed scam e-mail became popular during the month of November 2011 through Facebook and Twitter. Starbucks trapped users with the promise of free gift cards in exchange of a few clicks and personal information in that scam. On clicking the link, the users were enticed to share the ad through Twitter instead of Facebook.

Researchers at AppRiver further claimed that these kind of fake gift cards targeting Amazon are rampant and quite common through all sorts of social engineering techniques.

However, experts recommended general public to remain vigilant with the offers prevalent through holiday promos, gift cards, credit card purchase receipts, airline ticket confirmations, and greeting cards during the vacation season. These kinds of spamming are extremely popular in the holiday season, anticipating users to remain extra cautious and alert.

Conclusively, web users are advised to update their anti-virus software regularly and install high quality security software for safeguarding themselves from being victimized of unscrupulous fradulent spammers.

» SPAMfighter News - 17-12-2011

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