Halloween Spam Luring to Snatch Away Private Data

Experts of SophosLabs, Sophos worldwide network of spyware, spam and virus investigation centers, have identified a hacking attempt by hackers to take over Halloween festivities to snatch personal data of innocent users of Internet.

Sophos has come to know about a spam mail campaign, which directs the users to disclose their private and sensitive information promising a gift card of $250. Further, the mail makes use of certain painful puns which are related with the weird celebrations of October 31.

If the users click on the link embedded in the mail, they will be taken to a Website which contains Halloween images. Then, the site asks for multitude of personal questions viz. date of birth, postal address, email address and phone numbers, before presenting them a series of questions on topics like cigarette smoking, student loan and gender.

Senior Technology Consultant for Sophos, Graham Cluley, said that it is not clear that this spam intends to any identity fraud or it is just any queer market research. He added that if one visits the Website and discloses his personal data, his mail box would be full of unwanted junk mails, as per the news of Government Technology on October 19, 2007.

Graham further said that there is no clear proof of assuring the users that they would gift the card (gift) and the hackers behind this spam had already decided to send uninvited mails. Therefore, this is more of a trap and not a treat.

The security company also examines that it isn't the first time the spammers are taking the advantage of public holidays and festivals to push their products. For example, every year, hackers leverage from the occasion of St. Valentine's Day to market chocolate, jewelry, lingerie, and Viagra!

In the first week of October 2007, Symantec also claimed that the hackers are using the lure of gift cards in launching spam campaign. Further, Symantec also said that the gift card is offered for a number of services and products which includes subscriptions of History channel magazine and Dominos Pizza, if the user completes a survey.

Related article: Halloween Exploited For Scareware And Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 11/5/2007