Everyone seems to be jumping on the Royal Wedding bandwagon including hackers who are using it as a revenue generating opportunity. A poll conducted by Imperva, a data security firm, among visitors to this year’s Infosecurity Europe suggested 38 percent of security professionals have witnessed the nuptials being used for malvertising, 34 percent have seen wedding related spam and 20 percent incidents of search engine poisoning.
Imperva’s CTO – Amichai Shulman, said: “Everyone loves a good wedding and it appears hackers are no different. While we’re not surprised by the results it is worrying that criminals are systematically jumping on every opportunity to illegally make money by identifying, and utilising, revenue generating opportunities that utilise stolen credentials or inject malware.”
Individuals can protect themselves, and steer clear of attacks, by:
§ Not responding to emails from people they don’t know offering leaked information or sharing secrets from someone ‘close to the happy couple’
§ Make sure their computer’s security software is up to date.
Shulman adds: “The royal wedding is another reminder that organisations need to be vigilant to hosting phishing sites and act promptly to take them down if non-security savvy individuals are to be protected."
