Infotech Lead Asia: Indian IT users were affected by an advance-fee fraud facilitated by Android/Fake job offer in the first quarter of 2013, McAfee Labs said on Monday.
India IT security threats
McAfee says advance-fee fraud convinces victims that they have won a prize or have received something of great value. For collecting this prize, they need to pay a nominal fee. The victims lost this advance fee because the prize or item of value never existed.
In other occasions, computer displays a job interview letter, which informs victims that they have been selected for a job interview from a multitude of candidates and that they should pay for their travel expenses to get to the interview office.
The victims are told that they will be reimbursed for their ticket costs when they arrive at the (nonexistent) interview.
Q1 2013 saw a marginal rise in the spam volume in India, according to McAfee Threats Report: First Quarter 2013.
Global IT threats
McAfee says it observed a significant spike in instances of the Koobface social networking worm and a dramatic increase in spam.
McAfee Labs also saw continued increases in the number and complexity of targeted threats, including information-gathering Trojans and threats targeting systems’ master boot records (MBRs).
McAfee Labs found almost three times as many samples of Koobface as were seen in the previous quarter, which is a high point for the social networking worm that targets Facebook, Twitter and other social networking service users. After three years of stagnation, spam email volume rose dramatically.
One significant element behind this growth in North America was the return of “pump and dump” spam campaigns, which targeted would-be investors hoping to capitalize on all-time equity market highs. The McAfee Labs report showed the continued increases in Android malware, malicious web URLs and overall malware samples.
picture source: theindianeconomy.com
