Users are advised to not provide any personal information when answering an email
Phishers are increasingly eyeing the Indian media and entertainment industry, which was identified as the 16th most targeted website category by phishers, according to Symantec Intelligence earlier.
The perfect illustration of the finding is a recent phishing incident where phishers used a popular song from the Telugu movie "Brindavanam" as a bait in an attempt to steal critical information from users.
According to Symantec February Intelligence Report 2013, one in every 466.3 emails globally was identified as compromised due to phishing attack.
How it works?
Affected site displays an option of viewing the musical number from the movie "Brindavanam" starring Telugu actresses Samantha and Kajal Aggarwal in the left side. Users are then required to login credentials for viewing the video. After login credentials are entered, users are redirected to this legitimate movie website which features the same video. Due to the popularity of this musical number, and the star cast, phishers were probably hoping for a large audience, increasing the number of user credentials they could steal.
"Phishers' strategy of redirecting to a legitimate Web page reinforces the validity of the fake login for duped users. Once the users fell victim by entering their login credentials, they can easily steal users information for identity theft purposes," said Abhijit Limaye, Director, Development, Security Response, Symantec.
The phishing site was hosted on server based in Montreal, Canada.
Users are advised to adhere to the following best practices to avoid phishing attacks:
· Do not click on suspicious links in email messages
· Do not provide any personal information when answering an email
No comments:
Post a Comment