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Online Scammers Targeting Olympics With Bogus E-Mail Sweepstakes

by Terrence O'Brien on August 12, 2008 at 10:18 AM

Scammers and Thieves Target Olympics
Any time something major and well-publicized/media-covered happens in the world, there always seems to be a pack of cyber-criminals hanging around like a pack of vultures waiting to take advantage of unsuspecting and careless 'Netizens. An international event as huge as the Olympics is, of course, drawing its fair share of attention, from innocent, enthusiastic fans and ruthless online evildoers.

So watch out, as the BBC is reporting that scammers and thieves are flooding e-mail in-boxes with promises of Olympics-prize packages. But instead of prizes, these e-mails contain boobytrapped links to Olympic-themed Web sites that install malware on your computer. Other e-mails contain a PDF file that if opened infects your PC and turns it into just botnet zombie. These attacks are used to steal personal data and turn your computer into another spam spewing outlet from which to launch more attacks.

Avoiding getting sucked into these scams is pretty easy if you take basic precautions we've outline before:
[Source: BBC]

Tags: 2008olympics, e-mail, email, scam, security, spam

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