Internet scammers are taking full advantage of the fact that the World Cup is assured of high visibility across the planet through mid-July. Symantec says 25 percent of all global e-mail spam is now related to the World Cup.

Creative e-mail spammers are getting the gullible to buy fake tickets, fake drugs and bogus designer goods using the soccer tourney as the initial attention grabber.

And in a variant of the infamous Nigerian 419 scams, some are even persuading victims to wire cash to supply electricity to light soccer pitches to be used in World Cup matches.

“Right now, spammers are reliant on the massive wave of excitement and expectation that typically surrounds an event like the FIFA World Cup,” says Paul Wood, senior analyst at Symantec MessageLabs. “Riding this wave, spammers get the attention of their victims by offering products for sale or enticing them to click on a link.”

And it’s not just the average blue-collar soccer fan who’s at risk. Shortly after the tourney got underway, Symantec MessageLabs intercepted 45 e-mails addressed to specific managers at Brazilian chemical, manufacturing and finance companies. The attackers used World Cup-related ruses in an attempts to get the recipients to self-infect their PCs. That would’ve given the bad guys a foothold to drill deeper into the corporation’s network, using the techniques Last WatchDog revealed in this investigative story.

FIFA, the organization running the tournament, is cautioning soccer fans around the world to be wary. One popular hoax claims to award tickets to big matches as part of an official FIFA lottery — it is, in fact, a ruse to extract cash and personal information.

SMS attacks

And, as fan excitement builds, scammers in Australia have begun targeting victims via cell phone SMS text messages. With the USA team surprisingly still in the hunt, security experts say they wouldn’t be surprised if World Cup texting scams spread to North America.

“As the U.S. has qualified for the next round, people will get more and more excited about the World Cup, and scammers look for any opportunity to tie into something that carries with it a high level of current interest,” says Chris Lennartz, vice president of product marketing at mobile security firm Airwide Solutions. “The fact that the US has advanced has led to an increasing interest level in the World Cup, and along with that the possibility of a threat grows. ”

Lennartz argues that mobile carriers — AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and others — are in “critical position to combat these threats with antispam and fraud solutionsÃ¢â‚¬â€especially during major events like the World Cup.” Meanwhile,Ã‚Â he advises consumers to always report spam either to their respective carrier, or through specific reporting channels established by some carriers.

By Byron Acohido

June 26th, 2010 | Imminent threats | Top Stories