14 DAY TRIAL // Security researchers warn that cybercriminals are trying to capitalize on the Super Bowl buzz and a lot of scams and spam campaigns are to be expected.
Antivirus vendor PC Tools quotes a comScore report from last year, according to which, as much as two thirds of people intended to go online on Super Sunday to gather information about the players, teams and other aspects of the game.
"Whenever there is a major event, like Super Sunday, we see this kind of increased activity," says Stephanie Edwards, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing of PC Tools.
The increase in malicious activity is similar to that on other important days like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, as well as pretty much any large holiday.
Amongst the most common threats are rogue advertisements that can lead people to drive-by download attack websites which install malware on their computers.
"[...] Hackers are increasingly targeting legitimate fan and sports websites through redirected links or ads. A football fan scanning the latest sports updates may unknowingly have malware downloading through interactive animations on the page," PC Tools warns.
There are also the regular email spam and phishing scams which users should be careful about. People are strongly advised against buying products from spam sites, as their credit card details might be compromised in the process.
They should also be very careful when searching for information online, because cybercriminals usually engage in black hat search engine optimization campaigns in order to poison search results with malicious links.
The Better Business Bureau (BBB) is advising people to watch out for last minute online ticket scams, as last year the organization received almost 1,300 complaints from scammed individuals.
Of course, the regular protection measures like surfing the Web with an antivirus installed, keeping popular software up to date and being suspicious of all email attachments, even when they appear to be coming from a trusted source, also apply.