Cybercriminals Exploiting Easter Break - Warn Experts

Softpedia.com published news on 16th April, 2015 quoting a warning of security experts as "Holidays are great time for cybercriminals to exercise their social engineering talent and trap users in providing valuable information or make a small payment through wire transfer in exchange of a promise of a big win to celebrate Easter in their latest campaigns."

They add that crooks had launched a malicious email campaign in trying to make some easy money.

The amount of the prize of the raffle was said to be 950,000 Pound (.32 Euro / $1.4 million) and it was organized by UK division of Microsoft as a part of an alleged celebration of Easter.

The cybercriminals attached a PDF file consisting the logo of the company and pictures of senior management staff members of Microsoft UK so that the message looked credible.

It was just a matter of replying to the email with your personal information (for verification purposes) within 29 days which enables crooks to collect money and keep quiet after that.

Microsoft UK supposedly requested the details like full name, address, gender, age, nationality, country and phone number.

However, there is no prize money as Microsoft never sent the notification and so you have not won a single penny. Security experts explain that actually, the message is a typical advance fee lottery scam designed to steal your money and personal information.

If you replied to the email to claim your prize, you would be immediately requested to send money apparently to process your claim explaining that this money is required to cover necessary expenses like banking charges, tax fees and insurance costs. The scammer will insist that the money has to be paid in advance due to legal requirements and cannot be deducted from the prize money itself.

And if you send the money, more requests for money may follow and it will continue till you finish your money to send or realize that you are being scammed.

Therefore, you have to be careful of any unsolicited message claiming that you have won a large sum of amount in a lottery or promotion in which you have never participated.

» SPAMfighter News - 4/23/2015