GFI Software's security researcher Christopher Boyd has reported a new Canadian pharmacy spam scam. Such things are hardly new – in fact, he pointed out to Infosecurity that “Spamhaus currently lists [Canadian pharma spam] at the number one position in ‘world’s worst spam’, with ‘tens of millions of pieces of spam sent worldwide every day’.”
But what is unusual with this particular scam is the speed with which it was released. Within a couple of hours of the end of the match, emails began to appear: “Euro 2012 Live: Czech Rep. 0 Portugal 1”. A link in the email reads, ‘Score your goal’; but it “leads to a Canadian pharmacy spam site,” says Boyd, rather than anything to do with football.
“Livestreams and match reports are all the rage right now, so make sure emails arriving in your mailbox are related to feeds, websites and services you subscribe to,” warns Boyd.
Such scams are likely to increase as the competition draws to a conclusion; and then restart with a few lure changes for the Olympics. “Quite often, scammers and purveyors of malware will focus on the build-up to the launch of a product or event, the days surrounding the launch and the conclusion of an event,” Boyd told Infosecurity.
One thing that may happen is that such scams will become more tightly focused as we move into the semi-finals and ultimately the final itself. “Targeting by country is a favorite technique of scams on social networks, and while it's possible this will take place, it's probably going to be limited to a small amount of countries as more of them are knocked out in the earlier rounds,” said Boyd. “I’d imagine scammers would be very happy seeing countries progress to the final stages with large populations as it gives them more end-users to target.”
Sorry, England – but the scammers would prefer a France/Germany final; simply based on the numbers. But, if Wayne Rooney scores the winning goal in the European final, the UK should brace itself for a flood of emails offering links to a video of the goal – hosted, of course, on a Canadian pharmacy website.