Viva fraud! Cyber crooks on FIFA pitch

Updated on: 16 January,2009 10:51 AM IST |
MiD DAY Correspondent |

Online lottery scams hit FIFA World Cup

Online lottery scams hit FIFA World Cup

Spammers are really quick on the draw when it comes to evil schemes. They have already come up with a scam related to the FIFA World Cup, to be held in South Africa a year-and-a-half from now.

An explanation is also provided as to how they won the contest, which is likely done to build up credibility.

The spam email is peppered with information which may overwhelm the user, and convince him that the message is indeed true. Ironically, the message even tells the recipient that they must keep the given "winning information" confidential until they have received their prize as part of a precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse.

This is an obvious example of social engineering method applied by the criminals.

According to the international Internet security provider Trend Micro, "The recipients are told that they have won a large amount of money, and are told to contact their 'claim agent' to claim their prize. The recipient is then required to present the claim agent with personal information such as their age, gender, nationality, and their contact details."

Certain variants of this scam even attempt to namedrop, but somehow also failu00a0 to do so, spelling Bill Gatesu00a0 as Bill Gate.

Delhi-based ethical hacker Vivek Vohra said, "The spam message is crafted with perfection so it is hard to distinguish for a normal user. Even mail filters cannot filter these emails as spam."