HAPPY HOLIDAYS
We see e-cards every Christmas with cute reindeer. On Halloween, it's dancing skeletons. Valentine's Day, someone is sure to say, "I Love You."
Whenever there's a media event or holiday, phishers are sure to follow. Recently, you might have seen phishing spam soliciting support for the Ron Paul presidential campaign. Last year, World Cup spam flooded inboxes around the world. And you can bet that a barrage of spam will follow in the wake of the upcoming Super Bowl and the 2008 presidential elections.
Any holiday or high profile news item is a target, simply because people are searching the Internet and receiving feeds about these events anyway, experts say. Naturally, event-driven spam remains popular because of its ability to capitalize on a large amount of traffic very quickly.
"A lot of spammers are quick on the uptake. They're very good at hitting the pulse of what people are reading and thinking about," said Dave Marcus, security and information manager at McAfee Avert Labs. "They're just very quick to pick up on high Google events.
