14 DAY TRIAL // Christmas is approaching and everyone is desperate to find great deals on products they can give away as presents. Cybercrooks noticed this and started sending out tweets which point to rogue websites that claim to offer fabulous prizes.
In the past couple of days I’ve received a lot of links on Twitter that pointed to classic surveys sites, and if at first I thought my readers were giving me tips, I soon realized that, in fact, I was the one being targeted by the malicious campaigns.
Using hashtags from trending topics, the tweets don’t say much to give away the scam’s true identity. In most cases I’ve seen, multiple users are targeted at a time in a post that only mentions “giveaways.”
Once the link contained in the post is clicked, the victim is taken to a fake site that allows one to choose between prizes such as gift cards for McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Walmart and IKEA. For those who aren’t lured by food and other product found in these stores, the website also offers, iPads, iPhones, Dell XPS laptops and gaming consoles.
“Congratulations, you are eligible for one of the following offers bellow! Hurry up, limited quantity available!,” reads a message on the rogue site.
At the time of writing, the secondary pages that contain the actual malicious elements are shut down, but that can change at any time and unsuspecting Internet users may be presented with a wide range of schemes, from survey sites to ones that serve malware.
A few hours after the malevolent tweet appears, it’s automatically deleted and reposted at a later time.
I advise you to avoid these so-called giveaways, even if they seem to come from someone you know. Not long ago, we’ve seen Lady Gaga’s Twitter account being forcefully taken over to serve her fans similar bogus prizes.