PayPal Scam Kicks Off Holiday Swindling Season
Hackers are getting a head start on the holiday shopping season by using a fake PayPal site to bilk unsuspecting consumers out of their credit card info.
Security firm AppRiver is urging people to be aware of a new phishing scam that appears in the form of a legitimate-looking e-mail from the popular e-commerce site PayPal.
This new phishing scam, AppRiver explained, is slightly different than the traditional scam in that the malicious page is sent as an e-mail attachment rather than as a link in the body of the message. When the attachment is opened, a site that is crafted to look just like PayPal opens, and all info entered on that page becomes property of the scammers.
PayPal has long been a favorite site for cybercriminals – because of how many people use it and the fact that credit card information is transmitted it consistently ranks as the top target for scammers. To ensure security, AppRiver warns people to be wary of unsolicited messages and to keep records of purchases made this holiday season.
In addition to this targeted scam, security analysts at PandaLabs have already noticed a number of malicious websites embedded in the search results for popular holiday-related keywords such as "Black Friday" and "Best Buy."
Clicking on these fraudulent sites directs users to a page that attempts to run an antivirus scan on their computers. If users fall for the trick, their computers can become infected with malware.
