14 DAY TRIAL // Shortly after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned and handed over power to the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces back in February 2011, several 419 scams started leveraging the event.
Now that Mohamed Morsi has been overthrown, it’s likely that we’ll see some scams leveraging this topic as well.
Al Jazeera reports that the Egyptian army has overthrown President Morsi. The former president and his top aides are being held in a military facility.
The country’s constitution has been suspended and the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mansour, has been named as interim head of state.
This is a perfect story for scammers. Morsi’s wife/sons/daughters and other relatives might start sending out emails, asking for help in moving the former president’s hidden treasures.
We’ve asked security expert Graham Cluley to share some insight on what we should expect. He believes that we could also see some other threats, besides the classic 419 scams.
“Whenever there is any big news story that captures the attention (and emotions) of the public, there is always the chance that cyber criminals will attempt to take advantage with scams and malware attacks,” Cluley told Softpedia.
“Those with an interest in the political developments in Egypt should be on their guard to get their news updates from legitimate media organisations rather than click on links from strangers,” he added.
“Whether there will be any scams connected to this developing news story remains to be seen, but there are clearly some net users (those with connections to Egypt in particular) who could be at risk.”
On Wednesday, #Egypt was trending on Twitter. This event might give cybercriminals the perfect opportunity to start spreading malicious links in hope that individuals interested in the situation in Egypt might click on them without giving it too much thought.
Here are some simple recommendations to protect yourself against potential threats that leverage Morsi’s removal:
-don’t click on random links posted on social media sites or ones received in unsolicited email; -don’t respond to messages that claim you can win large amounts of money; -make sure your software is updated; -always keep an antivirus solution running in the background.