Phishers Steal Frequent Flyer Points

Phishing e-mails reportedly are targeting Brazilian airline firms' customers with the aim to seize consumers' private accounts as well as miles traveled within frequent flyer schemes that the local airlines maintain. Securelist published this on July 19, 2011.

It maybe mentioned that frequent flyer schemes are a kind of loyalty scheme that airlines offer. Characteristically, airline users taken into the scheme add miles (points, kilometers, or segments) while frequently flying on the company's or its associates' aircrafts. Once such miles of a certain number are accumulated, customers are let to cash it for non-chargeable flying alternatively for other specified services or products.

Recently, investigators at Kaspersky Labs the security company have detected malicious e-mail campaigns, which try to acquire unauthorized admission into the accounts belonging to air-flight companies so that accumulated frequent flyer points of the customers can be stolen.

The assaults work with phishing e-mails pledging recipients extra points within one particular frequent flyer scheme alternatively presenting a non-existent award. Occasionally, the recipient a customer is tricked into doing a repeat registration on a phishing site.

Evidently, many Brazilian phishers are establishing malevolent domains with their names associated with airline companies, while actually they're a fake.

Sometimes the assaults have trojans modifying the Hosts files for diverting users onto phishing websites that typically ask for airline clients' registration number to log into the airline's website as also their password. And once these details are harvested, the phishers conveniently filch the accounts along with the points within it.

Amazingly, during these attacks, cyber-criminals use the stolen points like a currency. State the researchers that in one instance, a particular crook was selling the service of his botnet in Brazil containing 3,300 PCs, which could distribute unlimited spam at a price of $60 alternatively 60,000 accumulated frequent flyer points with one Brazilian airline organization.

The scam is reportedly impacting numerous clients of Brazilian airlines wherein Kaspersky says one customer has lost accumulated miles worth $7,600.

State the security specialists that in one similar assault during June 2011, a fresh SpyEye banker Trojan variant was found stealing frequent flyer points from customers who flew a German aircraft.

Related article: Phishers Expand Their Sphere of Attacks

» SPAMfighter News - 7/30/2011