Security researchers from antivirus vendor McAfee warn that spammers have already adopted the "2010 FIFA World Cup" theme in one of their latest campaigns. The 75th anniversary of South African Airways is used to add credibility to the fake promotion.
"It is certainly not surprising when scammers use major events such as the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2010 to fuel their scams, but I am surprised at how early they started this time!" Toralv Dirro, security strategist at McAfee Avert Labs, notes. For reference, the next edition of the FIFA World Cup football (soccer) competition hosted by South Africa will debut on 11 June, 2010.
The spam emails start with a short description of South African Airways (SAA), the largest airline in South Africa, which celebrated its 75th anniversary of service earlier this year. It is this anniversary that the crooks behind the campaign are using to make their scheme more believable.
"The airline was founded [in] 1934 and celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2009. […] South African Airways is offering 200 people a free opportunity and all expenses paid trip to watch the Fifa 2010 world cup by their ongoing promotion. This enables the winners for an automatic visa and a Free trip to watch the first and second matches on 11/06/2010 at Soccer City, Johannesburg and Green Point, Cape Town," the fake emails read.
What might push people to fall for this trick is that airlines do generally offer discounts on their anniversaries and South African Airways is no exception. According to a Reuters article from January, the company did run a special "Buy One Get One" (BOGO) free-ticket promotion to celebrate its 75-year history.
The emails claim that the receiver is one of the lucky winners and, in order to benefit from this offer, they need to provide all sorts of personal information, such as the full name, complete address, email and mobile phone number. Complying is a very bad idea and will most likely lead to identity theft.
"This scam is certainly not the most sophisticated we shall see. But to my knowledge it is the first," Mr. Dirro concludes. Unfortunately, we have to disappoint the McAfee researcher, as, back in April, we reported about a more complex lottery scam that used the 2010 FIFA World Cup theme.