With around three months to go before football’s 2010 World Cup kicks off in South Africa, online consumers should be on the look out for cyber scams that look to exploit international interest in the host country and its icons.
That’s the word from Symantec’s Dan Bleaken who points out that there are no sacred cows. “For example, our researchers recently identified a classic lottery e-mail scam purporting to be from the Nelson Mandela Foundation,” he says.
“The basic premise is that the recipient has won a large sum of money and in order to get the winnings they need to contact someone, or e-mail personal details to a webmail address.”
The e-mail addresses of those unwise enough to reply will almost certainly be added to a “scammers sucker-list”, ensuring they will be the recipients of many more scam e-mails in future.
“More worryingly, the next stage is for the scammers to phone or e-mail back in an attempt to get their victim to send an advance fee so that the supposed lottery winnings can be released.
“As is so often the case with advance fee fraud scams or 419s, the initial e-mail (see below) is just the first stage of an elaborate scam,” Bleaken says.
As can be seen in this case the e-mail attachment “Nelson Mandela Foundation” contains a surfeit of information, which, according to Bleaken, is a hint that all might not be kosher.
“This is part of the scammers’ attempt to distract the recipient, try to add legitimacy, and to put them at ease about suddenly winning a vast quantity of cash. Ultimately, it’s all about getting the recipient to phone a telephone number or to send personal details in a reply.”
Something else to look out for is a plea to keep the communication confidential. “Scammers know that the moment a potential victim shares what they have seen with someone else, the chances of the attack being successful are much, much lower,” explains Bleaken.
“Also, many recipients who have fallen for the prospect of being rich would find it quite exciting that it’s all a big secret. The scammers are once again demonstrating their knowledge of human nature.”