The Cybercrime ‘Five’ Part Three: eMugger
Who : This is the largest group of cybercriminals. In another era they would have been found nicking your purse, knocking over old ladies or selling solid gold watches for £10 from a battered old suitcase. These guys have picked up a few skills along the way, nothing too complicated, just straightforward malware, adware or spam. Once they have perfected how to do it once, they do it again and again and again.
Why: Fast, financial gain. The mainstays are fake antivirus programs, manipulating your identity, using your credit card numbers, or stealing passwords. Some make their money through illegal advertising, often paid by a legitimate company for pushing business their way. Cheap pills, anyone? Some members of this group believe they are simply "aggressive marketers." It helps them sleep at night.
What: Phishing and SEO poisoning was used within minutes of the earthquake which hit Japan in March 2011. Emails asking for donations to a rogue cause ‘Humanitarian Care Japan’ did the rounds and searching for the latest news online resulted in several links to malicious sites. Following the link, the victim was redirected to fake antivirus via a "CLICK HERE" button. A warning then appears stating that your computer might already be infected. Whether the "Cancel" or "OK" button is clicked, rogue a Windows OS-like anti-virus interface will popup. The user is then scared into thinking their computer is infected and they must download the scammers' program and pay for it to be cleaned up.
