Tue 28 Apr 2009
You knew this would happen, right? The spammers have jumped on the swine flu epidemic to send out scary, threatening or even enticing emails. Some subject lines inform you that Madonna has the swine flu (she doesn’t), or that you need to buy these fake pills right away to protect yourself (don’t do it).
There has also been a huge increase in the number of domains registered with the word “swine” in the URL. That means we can expect to see more and more malicious Web sites hawking their junk, or infecting visitors’ computers.
Another old ploy you may see pop up again claims to offer you an important video on the swine flu pandemic. But first, you must download and install an “update” to Adobe Flash Player. This will simply install malware on your machine.
Expect to see pitches for the antiviral drug Oseltamivir, better known as Tamiflu. Never respond to these emails, and never click on the links within. Many exist just to grab your credit card number.
In fact, you should not even open or read them. Just hit your trusty delete button!
May 8th, 2009 at 4:50 am
Such a sick way to threaten people to use the epidemic as an advantage. But I wish that the government informs the public about this business opportunist.