14 DAY TRIAL // Cybercriminals leverage the popularity of the Ice Bucket Challenge for financial gains by luring victims to malicious locations or by convincing them to shell out money for their cause.
Email communication is the most prevalent method to steer users to malware, but calling the victim directly for donations has also been observed.
USA Today reports that scam artists started to send out emails with links claiming to lead to various celebrities completing the challenge, but pointing to malware downloads instead.
The publication also claims to have seen examples of another type of scam, which “involves phony charities set up by scammers to steal your charitable contributions.” Then they call the victims and solicit donations.
In less harmful cases, Ice Bucket Challenges gone wrong are the latest bait for unsuspecting Facebook users to drive traffic to specific websites.
Since failure is known to be a powerful incentive, the crooks created a campaign purporting to show how different individuals died while trying to complete the challenge.
In reports from Hoax-Slayer, users are attracted with the promise of a video of a teen who died as a result of a neck injury suffered during the challenge.
Unlike the scam attempts, which never deliver a video because their purpose is to get victims to complete online surveys or to access malicious locations serving malware, in these cases, the footage exists and is shown to the visitors.
However, the subjects of the failed experiment, although sustaining injuries that sometimes led to hospitalization, did not die in their attempt.
It appears that the promoters of the videos are merely trying to drive traffic to their websites. Hoax-Slayer warns that the content in those locations may be misleading, as the pages contain a “confusing mix of sensationalized but genuine news stories and totally fabricated nonsense.”
On one of the websites, the administrators clearly state the type of information that is offered to the vistors: “Huzlers.com is a satirical entertainment website with shocking news and outrageous celebrity gossip to keep its visitors in a state of shock and disbelief.”
With the growing popularity of the challenge, it was just a matter of time until crooks caught up with the online trend and started devising these campaigns.
Researchers warned about the ALS campaign being leveraged for nefarious purposes a little over a week ago.
Another deceitful message circulating in the social network world claims that 73% of the donations to the ALS Association are used for anything else but research leading to finding a cure for Lou Gehrig's disease.
The rumor is false, as proved by Barbara Newhouse, President and CEO of The ALS Association in a public communication. Since July 29, the ALS Association raised $94.3 / €71.782 million.