Beijing Olympics Presenting Enormous Opportunities to Phishers

According to new reports coming in from Symantec, the security vendor, it is constantly advising businesses and consumers to be watchful of a steep rise in malware, spam and phishing attacks that could potentially be masked under an Olympic theme to take control of the user's system.

According to the security company, a recent e-mail scam, which its analysts were able to thwart, was posing a threat while pretending to arrive from the Beijing Olympic Committee. The message declared that the recipient had won an Olympic lottery and so he/she needed to answer back with personal details in order to claim the supposed prize.

Commenting on the scam alert, Richard Archdeacon, Director of Symantec Global Security, said that at important international sporting as well as social events, the company often observes a huge increase in online attacks. These attacks range from ordinary spam assaults to compromise of Websites connected with those events. As anticipated, the Beijing Olympics is being prepared to project as a major event of this year (2008), while spammers and hackers are eyeing it as an opportunity to exploit the unwary, as reported by CIO on August 4, 2008.

Archdeacon further warned Internet users that to remain safe online, they should be careful of e-mails or not to follow links that come from strangers, no matter what attractive offerings they make. Business organizations need to make sure that their computer networks are patched as well as their company's Websites are up-to-date with the most recent security solutions; otherwise they could risk of damaging their reputation by unwarily hosting malicious software on them.

Further, according to Symantec, with increasing number of sophisticated malware moving across the Internet, users need to be cautious while logging onto Websites as well as be careful of the basic operating software of their computers so that they can avoid becoming a convenient victim of malicious attackers.

Symantec also asks users to exercise caution at Internet cafes, as the previous person working at the PC might have dropped malicious software solely to steal personal information of the user who comes in next.

Related article: Businesses Asked To Shoulder Security Of Online Transactions

» SPAMfighter News - 8/18/2008