Scam Of The Week

On the day of the Scottish referendum, Get Safe Online has warned of early results messages.   The organisation warned that the long wait may cause people to lose their security knowledge, as major national or global events which attract widespread interest can also attract the attention of scammers.   It warned on emails, social media posts, texts, forums and instant messages which 'reveal the results' of the referendum at any point before the official...

A Peter Pan pantomime in Bournemouth is being used as part of a sophisticated attack from Eastern Europe that is targetting thousands of British businesss.   According to the Telegraph, an email claiming to be a £145 invoice for nine tickets to a performance of Peter Pan at the Bournemouth Pavilion theatre contained an attachment that if opened installs a virus onto the recipent's computer. Once installed, the malware, which the email claims are the tickets for...

Wannabe hackers have been caught out by a reverse scam which tricks Facebook users into injecting or placing malicious JavaScript or client-side code into their web browsers. According to the Hacker News, the Self Cross-site Scripting code could allow an attacker to gain access to victims’ accounts, thereby using it for fraud, to send spams and promoting further attacks by posting the scam on timeline to victims’ friends. In this case, an attacker sends a...

A web page, which imitates the official FIFA website and prompts visitors to sign a petition in defence of Uruguayan striker Luis Suárez, lures victims to a spam mailing list or even to malicious attachments.,   According to Kaspersky, the phishing page matches the design of the official website and all links on it redirect users to FIFA’s official site. To sign the petition, the user needs to fill out a form, entering their name,...

Despite his condition improving in recent days, this has not stopped scammers from using the news about F1 legend Michael Schumacher as a lure.   According to ESET, this is the latest scam spreading on Facebook, and claims that Schumacher has died. The German driver suffered a severe head injury at the start of the

Despite his condition improving in recent days, this has not stopped scammers from using the news about F1 legend Michael Schumacher as a lure.   According to ESET, this is the latest scam spreading on Facebook, and claims that Schumacher has died. The German driver suffered a severe head injury at the start of the year, and he was recently placed in a medically induced coma.   However the scam claims that there is a video...

Phishing emails that contain Dropbox links in the text body have been detected   According to PhishMe, emails typically appear as an incoming fax email, or as a legal case email, with the Dropbox links appearing as a link to download further information or documents. However the Dropbox links are legitimate,but once there the recipient can download a small zip file which contains an executable masked as an .scr file, or a Windows screen saver...

The concept of a fake notification is nothing new, but a fresh take has been spotted which targets Irish Apple users.   According to security vendor ESET, the user receives a fraudulent notification of a purchase made via an Apple ID, and that the recipient should “reset your password”. The message gives an order number, appears to be from “@apple-store-co.com” and cheekily offers “tips for protecting the security of your account”.   Naturally the link...

Malicious emails which take advantage of the South Korean capsized ferry have been detected.   According to Trend Micro, emails have been detected which leverage the “Sewol” incident, which carried 476 passengers, with emails supposedly containing a court order notifying the recipient of his/her scheduled court hearing.   These contain a malicious .ZIP file attachment containing a malware detected by Trend Micro as BKDR_KULUOZ.SMAL. Although the email does not talk about the capsized ferry directly,...

Since it was announced at February’s Mobile World Congress event, smartphone fans have been eagerly talking about the latest Samsung Galaxy device, the S5.   As we have seen with other scams, it is often something that you want that delivers the best return for clicks. In this case, Softpedia reported that after the phone was launched in Korea and will be available in the rest of the world next week.   Therefore, scams have...