New Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Ad Released

It is simply incredible how easy people will give up the most intimate and sensitive information about themselves once a third-party has earned their trust. It’s no wonder that online scams involving social engineering seem to never fail at producing new victims, and a new campaign Microsoft is running for Internet Explorer 8 shows just how easy it is to trick unsuspecting people. The new IE8 campaign launched earlier this month comes with video advertisements featuring footage the Redmond company shoot at a fake bank.

“We’ve started a TV campaign that recreates some notorious internet scams to show how easy it is to fall victim to online attacks. In the first ad we showed real customers giving personal information like their social security number, mother’s maiden name and ATM password to a fake bank to get $500 for opening an account,” Microsoft’s James Pratt revealed.

As you will be able to see from the two videos embedded at the bottom of the screen, victims object little or not at all when they’re asked to hand over their personal information to what appears to be a legitimate bank employee. However, and this is often the case with online scams, the banking organization was just a front masquerading as a genuine bank. “The second ad [aired on June 17th] during ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ on FOX, 8PM EST. This time, you’ll see customers willing to have a DNA scan and give hair samples,” Pratt added.

Attackers often replicate a bank’s website down to the last details and trick customers into providing their sensitive information, which they subsequently use to empty their accounts. Tools such as IE8 can help customers avoid becoming victims with the help of security features such as the the SmartScreen Filter, and Domain Highlighting.


Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) RTW is available for download here (for 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008).

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 2 is available for download here.