Scam Of The Week

Michael Sutton, VP of security research at Zscaler has spent some time looking for sites that are taking advantage of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 (MH370) to profit from the tragedy. Unsurprisingly, it was all too easy to find examples of this as it is almost a given that scammers will attempt to profit from any breaking news story, especially those where the public is desperate for the latest tidbit of news - regardless...

It was one of the biggest launches of a video game in years, and had press coverage and sales comparable to Hollywood films.   However not everyone owns a PS4, and therefore could not own Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA V), and now rumours have begun that claim that Rockstar are launching a PC version. Naturally this anticipation has led to spam emails being sent offering a “GTA 5” PC beta test.   According...

If you ever wanted to see some of your Facebook friends au natural, then a recent scam seemed to allow this.   According to The Hacker News, the clickjacking scam appeared on a user’s timeline with a friend's picture and an invitation to "See (Friend)'s naked video," or "(Friend Name's) Private Video." Unsurprisingly it is not genuine and if you get curious and click, you will be redirected to a malicious website which reports that your Flash...

ESET is warning Mac users not to download pirated software from file-sharing peer-to-peer networks, as ESET researchers have discovered Bitcoin-stealing malware being spread via cracked apps. The malware, OSX/CoinThief , was first discovered earlier this month and was found to steal login credentials related to various Bitcoin-related exchanges and wallet sites via malicious browser add-ons. CoinThief was first spotted earlier this month by SecureMac researchers, who found it had been distributed via popular download sites...

A website which attempts to have Tumblr users install a suspicious application has recently returned.   While the application was taken offline in 2013, the site’s return has caused commotion in Tumblr land due to the large amounts of posts popping up which direct end-users to survey-style landing page offers. The application promised to let the page owner know who was viewing their blog and encouraged them to click on a bit.ly link that took...

A new malicious campaign is targeting customers of the major US financial institution Bank of America. According to AppRiver, it has caught and blocked a set of virus campaigns over the past month that use “new and novel tactics” designed specifically to beat filtering engines. It said that one common component is that enormous volumes of traffic are sent to data centres, with peaks reaching three or four times normal network traffic. The spikes are...

Fake installers for software are a common threat for PCs, but they are not so prevalent for mobiles – until now.   According to PCmag.com, detection and analysis by F-Secure of a malicious application posing as Adobe Flash Player found that this targeted Android devices. While F-Secure was unable to determine the origin of the app, it said that it was possible that the app was being circulated on third-party Android marketplaces, while victims may...

Justin Bieber’s arrest for racing under the influence has created a video which advertises ‘secret’ and ‘exclusive’ photos and videos of the singer during his most troubling times.   According to Malwarebytes, the video itself is just various images of recent Bieber-related events with very sad music — almost like a Humane Society commercial. The video itself says “Download Here” but in reality the creator, named “BieberDUI”, wants you to click the links in the...

AppRiver have identified a rather tasteless malicious offering from the Asprox botnet, a botnet that has come roaring back to life as of late. In his recent blog, Fred Touchette confirmed that Asprox had not been known for being quite this tenacious in the past - that is until the author of the formerly most widely used exploit toolkit, Blackhole, was arrested back in October. Since then, customers of Blackhole jumped ship out of concern...

Paul Walker died in a car crash in November 2013. Scammers are leveraging the unfortunate incident to lure unsuspecting Facebook users to all sorts of malicious websites. The posts read something like this: “(Shocking Video) Leaked footage of Fast and Furious star Paul Walker shows that he was still alive minutes after Rodas and Walker crashed into a light pole and tree! - Watch the footage of the accident unfolding as the porsche appears to have...