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Sam Masiello

Sam Masiello
Director of Messaging Security Research
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McAfee Labs :

Get Rich Quick! Just In Time for the Holidays

Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 12:43pm by Sam Masiello
Sam Masiello

National unemployment rates over 10% and the pressures of the holiday shopping season make for a dangerous cocktail that the cyber criminals can take advantage of.  Fears of not being able to pay the monthly mortgage, car payments, backed up bills, and providing for your children for the holidays have put many people into situations that they never thought they would find themselves in. This has caused many to become desperate and vulnerable as the try to make ends meet.  Cyber criminals are always looking to take advantage of vulnerable situations as a way to dupe people into giving up your sensitive information.  In addition to obviously being criminals, I always say that cyber criminals are also great marketers!

To that point, be on the lookout for many different types of scams this holiday season (check out our recently published “12 Scams of Christmas“) including get rich quick schemes and work from home opportunities that are really just covers for phishing scams or attempts to inject malware onto your computer.

We are monitoring a couple such scams arriving via email which are linking off to Twitter updates or free blogging services like Google’s Blogspot:

Get Rich!

More Getting Rich!!!

Get Rich Tweet!!

As the holiday season progresses, we will see more of these types of scams popping up with themes ranging from holiday sales and rebate opportunities to holiday e-cards which actually install malicious applications instead of the holiday card!.  One bit of advice that we ask users to follow is that if you are interested in the latest deals and bargains being offered by your favorite online retailer this holiday season, go to the web site directly by typing their web site into your browser.  Do not click on a link in an email or instant message to get you there because the link might actually be masked to go to a lookalike site setup by cyber criminals to steal your personal information.  If the offer that arrived in your inbox is legitimate it will be honored on the web site if you browse there manually as opposed to clicking a link that arrived in your inbox.

Have a safe and malware free holiday season!

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Comments (1)

  • Caolan Patrick – Wea February 23, 2011 11:57PM

    Many people spend hours of their valuable time thinking about money, the things they could do and the things they can buy if they had money; instead of thinking of ways to get rich! First thing you need to do is to develop that intense desire to achieve your goal, prepare yourself for extensive hard work that will be required. One cannot just sit back, relax and wish to become rich! You must work hard, focus, determined and plan your strategy.

    Reply