PRESS RELEASE
Bochum (Germany), 8th June 2012 - The national teams have all arrived at their temporary camps in Poland and the Ukraine, and football fans all over Europe are anxiously awaiting the first matches of the tournament. G Data is expecting the first attacks to take place even before the start of the first game of the European Championship. These last days before the official kick off, cyber criminals are focusing their attention on football fans with special malware, targeted attacks and EC related fraud.
A specific threat are the targeted spam campaigns, in which exclusive footage, nice EC prizes, and even tickets to matches are offered. With these offers, scammers are trying to get a hold of personal and financial data and infect the computers of football fans with malware. G Data offers an overview of the most common scams and offers tips on how to be safe online.
Which scams can be expected?
- Ticket sales: spam messages, manipulation of search engine results and ads on auction sites about the sale of fake or non-existing tickets for matches of the tournament.
- Phishing attacks: Fake e-mails of online ticket shops lure recipients into leaving their credentials on a manipulated website,
- facilitating identity theft
- Dangerous links on social networking sites, posted by strangers, or by friends (who's account might be hacked), that promise exclusive videos, fun games or interesting interviews. In reality, malware is being downloaded and installed onto the computer of the visitor of the website.
- Make sure all patches and updates of your operating system, your web browser, and all other software on your computer are downloaded and installed at all times.
- Create a back up of your system on a regular basis, just in case your pc gets infected by malware and your documents and programs become inaccessible to you.
- Install a robust security solution to protect your system and your internet connection.
- Delete unsolicited mail and never click on links in e-mails and in messages or status updates on social networking sites.
- Make sure your smartphone and / or tablet pc is secured with a strong password.
- Make sure the firmware and software on your mobile devices are always up to date.
- If an offer seems to be too good to be true, it usually is just that. Tickets to games are not randomly offered to complete strangers, and especially not at reasonable prices, so don't get tempted to respond to such offers.
Bochum-based G Data Software AG is an innovative and rapidly expanding software house that specialises in IT security solutions. A specialist in Internet security and pioneer in the field of virus protection, the company was founded in Bochum in 1985 and developed the first antivirus program 25 years ago.
This makes G Data one of the oldest security software companies in the world. For more than five years, no other European security software provider has won more national and international tests and awards than G Data. The product range comprises security solutions for end customers as well as medium to large-sized enterprises. G Data security solutions are available in more than 90 countries worldwide.
More information about the company and the G Data Security solutions is available at www.gdatasoftware.co.uk.
