Scammers Targeting Travel and Hotel Reservation Websites

According to security firm, Trend Micro, after targeting users of commercial websites like eBay, cyber crooks are now after users who frequently visit travel websites. Evidently, at least, one out six Internet users, who are travelling and has visited sites or hotel reviews pages, has been hit with a new malware recently.

Trip Advisor Inc., a hotel-review website, was currently victimized by the bug, according to Trend Micro. Some of the Trip Advisor's users received spam mail along with their booking confirmation for hotels and resorts they had confirmed on these travel websites. As such, the online Group is known a prey of the cyber cheaters.

According to the Head of Corporate Communications at Trend Micro, Suchita Vishnoi, after looking at the increasing rise of attacks, she claimed that online travel and hotel markets have become a striking target for cyber cooks taking into consideration the large volume of dealings on hotel and sites on the internet. A regular traveler making a hotel booking or who checked the reviews recently, in all chances, would be encouraged to click the link. When a user click the link provided in the attachment, the malware called Gamarue becomes vigorous. Any saved details in the email can be stolen if the system is infected," as per the statement published by techmagnifier.com on November 26, 2012.

Unfortunately, it is because of malware-ridden spam emails campaign of the before mentioned kinds of malware around the internet is increasing, comments by security expert after examining the campaign.

Sophistication in the technology and constant persistence of the cybercrimes today has overstated significantly. Simple steps like foolproof software installation and using safe websites aid is cutting the hazard of cyber threat.

However, it is not the first time that a hotel reservations website has been aimed by spammers. In August 2012, Security Firm MX Lab found a Trojan variant distribution in phony emails purporting to be from Booking.com regarding a hotel reservation. The email has the subject "Hotel Reservation [3709602]". The e-mails included in an attachment which include an executable called as Hotel-Booking_Confirmation.exe, as revealed by MX Lab.

Related article: Scammers Collect MySpace Passwords Via Phishing

» SPAMfighter News - 12/4/2012