New Zealand Earthquake Relief Scams in Circulation

Security researchers warn of disaster relief scams popping up following the series of recent earthquakes in New Zealand and advise people to contribute only to well known organizations.

On September 4, 2010, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit the Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island. Several aftershocks have been registered since then.

The most serious one had a 6.3 magnitude and occurred a week ago in Christchurch, resulting in 154 confirmed deaths and over 200 people missing.

As history has shown, cybercriminals waste no time to exploit events that attracts public interest, especially natural disasters when people are emotionally vulnerable.

One of the most common scams associated with such tragedies are relief scams and, according to David Harley, senior research fellow at antivirus vendor ESET, they have already started targeting the Christchurch earthquake.

The security expert notes that such scams have been expected to appear after the September 2010 earthquake, together with black hat search engine optimization (BHSEO) campaigns, just as they did after the one in Haiti.

"However, you should be aware that the New Zealand government isn’t appealing for aid – New Zealand is a lot more prosperous than Haiti, of course – and comparatively few genuine aid organizations are, therefore, mobilizing support," Mr. Harley points out.

Nevertheless, if someone feels like helping, the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE) has put together a list of organizations accepting aid.

These include the New Zealand Red Cross (http://redcross.org.nz), the Salvation Army (http://salvationarmy.org.nz) and SPCA Canterbury (http://www.spcacanterbury.org.nz).

Meanwhile, people are advised to exercise extra caution when searching the Internet for the latest news related to the earthquake, because the search results might be poisoned with malicious links that lead to malware.