Phishing Scam Targeting Online Music Fans

A caution about a fresh spam operation was posted by Sophos. It highlighted how the personal data of users are phished out through Myspace. A phishing assault, which targets the music fans of Myspace, is developed by swindlers. The highlight of the scam is the emerging use of social engineering techniques for creating spam emails to make money.

Prompting the users to click the MySpace.com's link, the message then direct the user to another site selling MP3s instead of the Myspace site and persuade the visitors to purchase and download the music.

The recipients are informed by a message in the electronic mail "You've got a new song from <name> on MySpace!" In addition, it requests them to click a link, which routes them to another site that claims to sell MP3 music.

The aim of this scam is to deceive potential marks to divulge their name and all the details of credit card to the swindlers. In an effort to ensure the legitimacy of the spam email, the swindlers even include phony MySpace boilerplate contents in their mail. By appearing as a legitimate email from a contact in MySpace, the swindlers increase the probability of would be victims opening the email.

Sophos' senior technology consultant, Graham Cluley said that with around 43 million users, MySpace is a household name now. So, it was just a matter of time before fraudsters took advantage of its rising popularity for illegitimate purposes.

He added further that the email has been spread out spammed out so aggressively that most of the recipients are not MySpace users even. So they should understand that the mail is unsought and delete it. Anyone who clicks on the link in a chance to receive free music is on the risk of divulging his or her private information.

He gave an advice to all individual and business users to safeguard their email from phishing and spam assaults with necessary safety procedures. If this attack persists, the anticipated number of persons or organization affected could cross over a million.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 10/19/2006