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MUMBAI, INDIA: Scammers have moved quickly to take advantage of the Ashley Madison data breach and Symantec telemetry shows a spike in spam email campaigns mentioning the infidelity website.
Here are three ways you can protect your PCs:
Be wary of emails that relate to the leaks: Scammers are often quick to take advantage of current events.
The sheer size of the Ashley Madison breach coupled with the embarrassing nature of its database provide a perfect opportunity for scammers to prey on those worried that their or their partner’s name is included in the data cache. Be very wary of any email purporting to relate to the leak.
Exercise caution: with websites offering to check if someone’s details are included in the breach.
Unscrupulous operators could use the submitted details to identify people who are worried about the data leak and target them with extortion attempts.
Do not pay anyone: offering to remove personal details from the leaked data, since this cannot be done. This information is already in the public domain and multiple copies exist.
The breach and subsequent leak of user data has created a market opportunity for scammers seeking to take advantage of people affected by the breach, according to Symantec.
Immediately after the leak of a database of the site’s customers on August 18, there was an upsurge in spam activity relating to the breach. For example, since August 19, the security vendor has blocked thousands of spam emails listing domains relating to Ashley Madison in the to or from fields.
Among the domains blocked were:
ashleymadisonaccounts.com
ashleymadisonlegalaction.com
ashleymadisonlistleak.com
ashleymadisondata.net
ashleymadisondata.info
ashleymadisondata.co.uk
ashleymadisondata.org
ashleymadisonteam.com
ashleymadisonleakeddata.com
ashleymadisonnews.net
checkashleymadison.com
ismyhusbandonashleymadison.com
From August 22, further spam campaigns have been blocked that contain references to the website in the subject lines of emails.
Blocked subject lines included:
“How to check if your email is part of Ashley Madison's hack”
“Ashley Madison Hack Should Scare You”
“How to Check if You Were Exposed in Ashley Madison Hack”
“Ashley Madison records leak”
“Ashley Madison Hack Update”
“Ashley Madison hacked, is your spouse cheating”
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