Exploit London Games Olympic Flavored 419 Scams

Olympic themed fraud, email scams, and spam campaigns are so banal right now that the official website of the 2012 London Olympic Games contains not only a ‘stay safe online’ page but has also compiled a downloadable list of known scams.

The “Stay safe online” page of the London Games’ website links to an online checker where prospective ticket-buyers can determine whether resellers are authorized or not. As the site notes, “If you receive offers of tickets from anyone else, they are likely either to be committing a criminal offence by selling London 2012 tickets without permission, or committing fraud by offering fake or non-existent tickets.” Ironically, at the time of publication, the ‘online website checker’ link led to a nonexistent page within the London Games website.

The page also warns of email scams. Common themes, according to the site are, emails claiming their recipients won an ‘Olympic lottery,’ emails to manufacturing companies, asking them to pay large fees in exchange for items for the Games, and emails informing the recipient that they can apply for a job being involved with the Games for a fee.

ZScaler acquired two such emails, and they appear to be Olympic themed but otherwise classic 419 scams.

You can find the full list of known scams here (.PDF), with one strandout being the “Big Big London 2012 Olympic Lottery,” because the fraudsters clearly feel their scam will be more effective if they emphasized just how big the lottery is.

Beyond that, the site assures users that they will only collect financial or personal information through a secure connection, which will be denoted by a little green padlock and ‘https’ in the URL bar. 

Source: http://threatpost.com