Phishers Attack Football Fans in Brazil

According to the security company McAfee, a phishing attack has just been launched involving a picture of Brazil's coach 'Dunga' shown as severely beaten. The picture is badly photo-shopped. The scam contains a news fake story that two outraged football lovers attacked Dunga because he didn't chose Ganso and Neymar, the two players, for his team of 23 men for this month's (June 2010) FIFA World Cup to be hosted in South Africa.

In addition to presenting an extremely poorly-modified picture of Dunga, the scam further provides a web-link leading to the fight's pictures. But on clicking the link, one is taken to another website apparently of the Malaysian government seems to be hacked.

McAfee reports that the link supposed to offer the pictures of the fans' assault actually contains a Trojan - "PWS-Banker.gen.ad." While proliferating through phishing e-mails, PWS-Banker plants one more rootkit and steals confidential data from the infected PC.

McAfee further states that today's phishers have become typical exploiters of prominent sports events. They use social engineering tactics against their victims. Thus, it is certain that people worldwide will encounter more of these phishing assaults incidences as the craze for the World Cup rises globally.

Furthermore, security analysts state that if English soccer player 'Rooney' fractures his legs while fighting in a nightclub, or someone slaps Brazilian soccer player 'Ronaldo' because he long deserved one, an online scam promising pictures isn't something unexpected quickly. Consequently, Internet scam attacks during the 2010 World Cup should not be regarded as a security challenge exclusively for SA.

Apart from McAfee, Symantec, another security company, indicates that during the earlier World Cup tournaments, there had been considerably large numbers of online scams during the games. While the Internet is gaining popularity all over the world, both cyber-crime gangs and individuals are similarly scattering. Therefore, Internet facilitates cyber-criminals to hunt down victims while flouting geographical boundaries. Hence, at the end of sports lovers themselves, they require to exercise caution to remain safe from these cyber-criminals' attacks.

Related article: Phishers Expand Their Sphere of Attacks

» SPAMfighter News - 6/10/2010