The Brazilian soccer team are fast becoming favorites to win the FIFA World Cup and Brazilian businesses are fast becoming easy targets for cybercriminals looking to exploit the excitement around the World Cup.
Brazil began its run in the 2010 World Cup with wins over North Korea and Ivory Coast. Less positive news for arguably the worlds most ardent soccer fans is that their passion is being exploited by cybercriminals who have launched a barrage of attacks on Brazilian companies.
Symantec researchers have identified a run of 45 targeted malware e-mails that have been sent to Brazilian firms in the chemical, manufacturing, and finance sectors. This social engineering attack exploits the excitement surrounding the 2010 World Cup in South Africa to prompt the recipients, managers and executives at the targeted firms, to take actions which could compromise their systems and corporate information.
Sent from a server hosting company in Brazil, the e-mail purports to be from a well-known sportswear manufacturer and sponsor of the World Cup a ploy, which adds validity to the attack. In order to increase the chance of a successful attack, the criminals included both a malicious PDF attachment and a link back to their server which can result in downloaded malware.
For more information on this and other World Cup related threats visit www.2010netthreat.com. Alternatively, please let me know if you’d like to speak with Symantec about this threat and I can arrange a briefing.
