Spam centered on the FIFA 2010 World Cup has soared by around 27% according to IT security specialist, Symantec. To date, the company has identified numerous scams, phishing and malicious attachment spam, related to the world\u2019s largest sporting event.<\/p>\n
Symantec\u2019s Samir Patil has commented: \u201cNot surprisingly, 419-scam messages stand out as major contributors and with kick-off literally around the corner, we expect all spam volumes related to the World Cup to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Online users can expect to receive many variations of spam types, with offers of fake game tickets, malware distribution via fake videos purportedly showing highlights of the games and fake FIFA product offers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe first observed FIFA-related scams way back in 2005 when South Africa was announced as the 2010 FIFA World Cup host country. However, the message volume during the last couple of months has shot up,\u201d Patil says.<\/p>\n
While tracking the prevalence of FIFA spam, Symantec analysed the spam corpus for certain obvious words being used in various parts of the e-mail (headers, body or obfuscation text) such as \u201cFIFA 2010\u201d, \u201c2010 FIFA\u201d, \u201cFootball World Cup\u201d, and \u201cFIFA World Cup\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found a definite month-to-month rising trend, as shown in the graph below. Compared to the World Cup spam volume in April, the data up to May 25th shows an increase of approximately 27%,\u201d Patil says.<\/p>\n
For more information on Internet scams relating to the 2010 Soccer World Cup, visit http:\/\/www.2010netthreat.com\/<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n About Symantec <\/strong><\/p>\n Symantec is a global leader in providing\u00a0security, storage and systems management\u00a0solutions to help consumers and organisations secure and manage their information-driven world.\u00a0 Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored.\u00a0More information is available at http:\/\/www.symantec.com\/en\/au\/.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Spam centered on the FIFA 2010 World Cup has soared by around 27% according to IT security specialist, Symantec. To date, the company has identified numerous scams, phishing and malicious attachment spam, related to the world\u2019s largest sporting event. Symantec\u2019s Samir Patil has commented: \u201cNot surprisingly, 419-scam messages stand out as major contributors and with<\/p>\n