2018 World Cup and Bitcoin are leading spam and phishing attacks in 2017

A report by Kaspersky Lab entitled "Spam and Phishing Attacks of 2017" showed that cybercriminals watched the most important events within the agendas in various fields and followed them over the past 12 months to hot topics such as the 2018 World Cup and the digital currency in their attempts To deceive users and steal their money or personal information.

Those behind unsolicited mass messages, known as spam, seemed to be familiar with global events and issues around the world, keeping abreast of developments and developments in order to attract the attention and exploitation of their victims.



Kaspersky Lab's persistent research on spam and phishing continues to emphasize that the methods used by fraudsters are effective, given the low level of user attention and the high level of blind trust in e-mail, all of which indicate the high probability that people will follow misleading instructions that come online .

With the 2017 FIFA World Cup preparations in place, spammers have been active in spreading e-mails related to the world's biggest sporting event.

Fraudulent messages containing official components of the event, including slogans and information from regulators and commercial sponsors, were sent in which criminals were keen to deceive recipients by winning lottery draws and giving them false promises to get free tickets for matches at the upcoming summer championships.

On the other hand, digital currencies were another hot topic of spam messages in 2017, which was accompanied by high rises in the price of Petequin, and researchers at Kaspersky Lab recorded in the third quarter of 2017 the growth in the resort to tricks have become related to Block Qin , And by the end of the year, the use of a wide arsenal of spam tools was observed.

According to Kaspersky Lab's findings, criminals use a variety of tricks, including camouflaged websites to look like digital currency platforms, and fake services offering zooming, the use of specialized data centers for rent, but in all cases users become victims who lose money instead of earning it.

Criminals have also begun to use the digital currency as a bait in a traditional form of deception, such as fake sweepstakes, target-targeted databases for which victims are attracted by spam, For users of digital currencies, having made promises to operators with great business opportunities.

In addition, criminals distributed various types of malware in spam messages, under the guise of tools to earn Bitquin, or instructions for trading in digital currencies. However, there was a drop from last year in the use of spam messages to launch ransom attacks that Aimed at digital currencies, known as Cryptolockers, whose victims claim to pay ransoms from digital currencies.

Overall, the average number of spam in 2017 dropped to 56.63 percent, 1.68 percentage points lower than 2016, while the number of phishing attacks increased. Anti-Phishing was launched from Kaspersky Lab 246,231,645 times on Kaspersky Lab users' computers, almost 59 percent higher than in 2016.

"The spammers did not miss a reason to steal the personal information of Internet users and were keen to keep their eyes on what was happening in the world," said Darya Gudkova, an expert on spam analysis at Kaspersky Lab. "Although we saw in 2017 A slight decrease in spam activities ".

Noting that in light of major global sporting events such as the World Cup, these criminals will only increase activity.

"In 2018, we expect further growth and growth in spam and phishing attacks related to digital currencies, with a greater variety of targets to include digital currencies other than Bitquin, which was widely used the previous year, And other methods of deception such as those based on what is known as the reduction of prices and raise them quickly Pump and Dump.

Other important trends and statistics in 2017, which Kaspersky Lab researchers have highlighted, include:

The United States was the largest source of spam at 13.21 percent, followed by China with 11.25 percent and Vietnam with 9.85 percent. Among the top 10 countries were India, Germany, Russia, Brazil, France and Italy.
Germany was the most targeted country for malicious mail attacks, accounting for 16.25 percent, a slight increase of 2.12 percentage points over 2016. The top 10 countries included China, Russia, Japan, Britain, Italy, Brazil, Vietnam, France and the UAE.
Brazil accounted for 29.02 percent of users affected by phishing attacks. Overall, 15.9 percent of users of Kaspersky Lab's various products around the world were exposed to phishing attacks.
Kaspersky Lab recommends that home users install a secure solution on their own devices. Kaspersky Lab also recommends companies using specialized security solutions designed to detect, prevent, and prevent phishing, malware and spam.
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