14 DAY TRIAL // Christmas is that time of year when scammers and cybercriminals step it into high gear when it comes to spam campaigns. Symantec provides several examples of emails you should be on the lookout for these days.
One of them is a lottery scam email which informs recipients that they’ve won a large amount of money in the “Xmas promotion 2013.” The fake notifications appear to come from a so-called Jackpot Company.
“Congratulations to you as we bring to your notice that [redacted] Jackpot company has chosen you by the board of trustees as one of the final recipients of this year Xmas promotion cash Grant/Donation to celebrate the 125th anniversary celebration and your email address emerged a Grant of £7,000.000 GBP,” the emails read.
If you look at it carefully, it becomes clear that no legitimate company would send out such poorly written notifications.
The scammers hope they can trick victims into providing personal information, such as name, address, nationality, age, occupation and phone number.
Later, after victims respond to the first email, they’re likely asked for some financial information. The “lucky winners” are also instructed to pay certain fees that are presumably needed to complete the transfer of the prize money.
If you come across such emails, ignore them. No matter what you do, you will not see a dime of the large amount of money promised by the scammers.
Check out Symantec’s blog to see other Christmas-themed spam emails that might land in your inbox these days. According to the IT security firm, most of the Christmas-related spam campaigns doing the rounds in this period are used to advertise various products.
Finance, personalized mail, replicas, dating and drugs are also popular topics.