Contributor: Anand Muralidharan
The 14th edition of the UEFA European Championship is set to begin from June 8th and will be hosted in Poland and Ukraine. Symantec has intercepted a 419 spam attack targeting EURO 2012. Below is a screenshot of the spam mail.
The scam message is attached as a PDF file called UEFA.pdf. This is a typical 419 scam message that says that the reader has won a EURO 2012 Cup promotion lottery. In the rest of the message, the spammers explain in detail how the recipient’s email address reached them and how it was selected as a winner out of huge number of other participants.
Finally, the recipient is asked to send the winning identification numbers by filling in the UEFA EURO 2012 online documentation form, which asks for personal details such as name, address, age, occupation, and phone number. One interesting line in the message says that the email addresses are collected from reputable companies that represent brands in their domains (the company names are intentionally blurred). Users should be cautious of such bogus emails that lure readers into sharing personal information.
We at Symantec predict a rise in UEFA EURO 2012 scams and other types of attacks over the next few days. We advise that readers exercise caution when opening unsolicited emails related to UEFA EURO 2012. The final is being played on July 1st. Until then don’t let spammers kick a goal!