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Google AdWords Phish In The Wild
David Utter
Staff Writer
2008-03-24
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Don't get reeled in by this one if you are a Google AdWords client: a new stream of phishing emails aimed at you have been hitting inboxes.
 | | Google AdWords Phish In The Wild |  |
The ongoing practice of phishing for personal information, especially financial details like credit card numbers, makes it a low risk/high reward endeavor for criminals. They pump out thousands or millions of emails, hope a few suckers pass along what they want, and use or sell the data.
Google's dominance in online advertising brings a high level of attention from criminal spammers, much as leading MMORPG World of Warcraft players get besieged by phishers looking for their login information. Google is a hard target to try and crack; their customers may be easier targets.
Barry Schwartz warned of AdWords clients seeing phishing messages pop unwanted into their inboxes. The message in question looks official, and even carries a convenient link to AdWords support.
However, the link to "update account information" goes to a server on a Chinese domain. Regular visitors to SecurityProNews will forgive us for completely failing to be shocked by the destination of the link.
(Ok, we're a little shocked it's not a Russian destination. Who knows, could be Russian spammers behind it after all.)
Fortunately, the person who posted the message prudently noticed how a mouseover of the link revealed the true destination for it. As with all suspicious messages, even if they look like they come from legitimate senders, beware of the common criminal tactic of dressing up a message to appear legitimate.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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