THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK -- Cyber/Online Scams Using the Words of Steve Jobs Death and Funeral

Cyber criminals are trying to cash in on the death of Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs by offering tech fanatics, especially Apple-crazy techies, different opportunities to win iGifts (iPads, iPhones, iPods etc) for virtually doing nothing but to register. 

Cyber/Online Scams Using the Words of Steve Jobs Death and/or Funeral

While most of the world paid respects and held tributes to Steve Jobs, cold-blooded scammers decided to take advantage of the situation with a brand new ploy. Cyber cowboys are using every platform to exploit internet users searching for the trending news of Steve Jobs’ death and funeral. Few of their tricks have already come in light and cyber security companies are continuously alerting web surfers to beware of such online scams. Some of the activities of internet fraudsters are given below:

·        MacBook Pro Winning Contest: Cyber criminals created an exclusive website stevejobsfuneral.com, which attempts to collect email addresses by tempting internet surfers into a competition to win a MacBook Pro by asking people to enter in a sweepstakes.

Further to the email collection trick, this website has links to an online store selling Apple products. However, the site contains affiliate advertising info that brings revenue for any purchases made through the links.

·        Facebook Scam:  One scam on Facebook purported to offer 1000 free iPads in memory of Steve Jobs, and was posted just two hours after the Apple co-founder passed away on Wednesday, according to web security firm Sophos.

Sophos disclosed jaw dropping results stated that at least 25,000 people from 100 countries had already clicked on the link, which lead them to a survey site that they had to fill out in order to qualify for the nonexistent prizes.

·        Funeral Photos and Video: Kaspersky Lab Researcher Dmitri Bestuzhev said it has found another cyber trap which claims to give chance to see exclusive photos and video footage from Steve Jobs' funeral.

Kaspersky Lab said "this video footage header reads 'The Life, Death, and Legacy of Steve Jobs'". The message says, Kaspersky Lab, added, "Video footage and images will be here uploaded live from the funeral ceremony. Check back each day to see if they are posted".

What to do …??

We have learnt in our childhood that 'Think before you speak' but now in this digital age the first and the last lesson is THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK. 

While stevejobsfuneral.com might be the biggest Steve Jobs-related scam right now but be sure that this is not the last one. You might come across many such traps set by cyber criminals in the days ahead; therefore, be cautious about the links you click, even if they were shared to you by a friend. Always get your news from official websites when possible.

Graham Cluley, senior security consultant at Sophos, advises internet users to look ahead for more scams in the near future, as cyber culprits use social networking techniques to entice users onto pages where they can be trapped into survey scams or may be subject to malware attacks.

Trend Micro has cautioned that there can be several such scams and social network users should not click on similar posts if they see them on Facebook newsfeeds or any other social network, like Twitter, MySpace etc.