"Bomb Blast." "Jackson is still alive: proof." "Obama cursed by Pope." These are just a few of the subjects used by cybercriminals last year to trick people into opening malware-infected e-mails.
Spam that uses the latest news headlines was just one of the hot trends last year in the world of cybercrime, according to McAfee's "Q4 Threats Report", released Tuesday. The latest threat assessment also noted a rise in "hacktivism," or politically motivated cyberattacks.
The crash of an Air France plane and the death of Michael Jackson in June continued to be top themes for spammers to exploit throughout 2009, notes McAfee. The swine flu also triggered a slew of e-mails claiming to be from the Centers for Disease Control but which actually carried viruses in the form of Zeus Trojans. The surge in unemployment led to a rise in spam touting get-rich-quick schemes. And as always, terrorism and unrest around the world contributed to subject lines designed to scare people into opening malware in their in-box.
So learn to recognize these e-mails and do not be prompted to open it.
Great idea. So easy to be fooled. In this day and age people should be more than aware of these types of scams. It' a nice change in story for your site. Different but related.
ReplyDeleteI've gotten them with a friend's name attached, which is just a coincidence. gotta have the protection program in place.
Mr. M