KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA: F-Secure, a provider in security solutions, today revealed a list of products most likely to be used by search engine scammers to prey on unsuspecting holiday shoppers.

The list compiles projected holiday 2009 gift favorites, including iPods and merchandise related to Michael Jackson’s blockbuster This Is It film. The hottest gifts will be the most searched for online, and thus become prime targets for cybercriminals.

Search engine scams, i.e. nefarious links that masquerade as normal search results, are particularly dangerous this holiday season as online shopping is predicted to be relatively strong compared to traditional retail. This, coupled with the fact that more and more grandparents, typically a less tech-savvy demographic, are shopping online could result in a search engine scam blitzkrieg around this holiday season’s most popular gifts.

The products most likely to be targeted by cybercriminals include:

•       The popular video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
  
•       Merchandise related to the Michael Jackson film This Is It
  
•       The Flip UltraHD Camcorder
  
•       Apple’s iPod
  
•       Nintendo’s Wii
  
•       Playskool’s Chuck My Talking Truck
                   
  
  How the search engine scams work

F-Secure’s global security labs team, which monitors and analyzes the changing security threat landscape, has seen a significant rise in search engine scams in 2009, said a press release.

With search engine scams, cybercriminals leverage public interest in major breaking news items to create bogus news-related links (e.g. articles, websites, videos) that can be used to obtain sensitive data – mainly financial information – from Internet surfers upon click-through. These efforts are typically bolstered by an Ad Words campaign that improves the Google rankings of bad links, resulting in more click-through and a higher rate of crime. 


How to protect yourself while online shopping

"Though they are not new, search engine scams have become a highly lucrative tactic for cybercriminals. We’ve seen the bad guys bank on almost every major news event this year, so we anticipate that they will exploit the most popular gifts people will be looking to buy over the holidays," said Chia Wing Fei, senior response manager of F-Secure Security Labs.

He strongly urged people to only shop on trusted ecommerce websites, using their individual site search engines. If that’s not a possibility, perform a ‘safe link’ check on unknown URLs with technology like Browsing Protection.

Internet users can surf safely by checking unknown URLs at http://browsingprotection.f-secure.com . The Browsing Protection quickly and easily lets users
know whether or not a link is malicious, said the release.

People can also protect their computers year round with F-Secure’s Internet Security 2010, which offers comprehensive security for the home PC user. Customers can subscribers security solution empowering by F-Secure from local mobile and broadband service providers.

F-Secure’s list of the ‘most dangerous gifts’ was compiled based on Amazon’s Most Gifted items, cross-checked against a Google Trends analysis of the most searched for product names during past holiday seasons, added the release.