Experts at Symantec have raised an alarm over the on-going
scam over the impending launch of the iPad-3 due to hit the market place
anytime soon.
They noted that most worrisome is the scam letter making a
round, claiming that a certain company has a business relationship with
Facebook.
The scammers, ITRealms Online gathered, introduced
themselves as Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer, Facebook.
The electronic mail (email) then states how Facebook have
joined up with Apple for a one time promotion to give away an iPad 3 at no
cost.
They alleged that though this email was targeted at a
Symantec customer, the advanced monitoring systems were able to identify this
scam.
“Upon investigating this email further, it is easy to
ascertain that it is a scam email due to the poor grammar used in the email and
the fact that there is a spelling mistake within the email itself,” experts
indicated, warning that “if you suspect an email you received from Facebook is
a scam, you can report it to them.”
This, they said is of course, all false information, but the
scam attempts to entice potential victims by stating how they have been
randomly selected from a Facebook database.
“It is possible that a user could potentially be deceived by
this ruse if they receive this email to the email address they have used to
register with Facebook,” they said.
The experts warned that the user could then be asked to
click on a link and fill out a survey with the goal for the scammers to obtain
personal information from the user and to verify that their email address is
valid, which they will undoubtedly use to send more spam to in the future.
Further, they warned that the scammer might also be making
money through click fraud, whereby they make money every time a user clicks on
the link to the survey.
They alleged that in the meantime, no one knows for certain
when the iPad 3 will be launched until Apple confirms the announcement
themselves.
They pointed out that whilst it would seem that this
particular scam was sent in a very low volume, it is likely that it would
continue to see a build-up of iPad 3 related spams right up until the official
launch date.
“There will also undoubtedly be similar related scams doing
the rounds on social networking sites as well,” part of the reports from
Symantec read.
They outlined some steps to be taken, described the scam as
unfortunate, adding that to identify scam email advised Internet users to adopt
the some best practices to avoid falling prey to phishing attacks.
These include avoiding a click on suspicious links in email
messages; avoid providing any personal information when answering an email;
never enter personal information in a pop-up page or screen.
Additionally, when entering personal or financial
information, Internet users have been counseled to ensure the website is
encrypted with an Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate by looking for the
padlock, ‘https’, or the green address bar.
Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D
No comments:
Post a Comment