As Feb. 14 draws near, scammers are out in full force, love-bombing millions of inboxes with bogus Valentine’s Day ads, promotions and online dating requests.
Many of the spam emails picked up by Bitdefender Antispam researchers this month offer discounts on luxury perfumes, floral arrangements, jewelry, male enhancement pills or supplements, adult toys and even seafood.
Although the emails may look legitimate at first, the bogus correspondence embeds images in the email body, a popular tactic used by spammers to bypass anti-spam filters that scan for text content.
Bitdefender Antispam Lab has been keeping an eye on Valentine’s Day-related spam since the end of January. Here’s what we’ve found so far:
The US tops the spam list as the most attractive target for scammers on Valentine’s Day, receiving 54% of the world’s Valentine-related spam, by volume between Jan. 28 and Feb. 7, according to our spam telemetry (see Fig. 2). Up next is Australia with 13%, Ireland with 10%, Sweden and Romania with 4% each, the UK with 3%, Denmark with 2%, and Canada, Germany, South Africa and France with 1% each.
43% of the spam emails originate from IP addresses in Russia, while 37% seem to have been delivered from scammers in the US who are most likely to capitalize on consumer shopping behavior on Valentine’s Day – with user spending expected to reach $23.9 billion this year, according to the latest National Retail Federation report.
Here’s a list of the most popular shopping-themed spam subjects picked up by Bitdefender anti-spam filters by Feb. 7:
We expect more and more spam campaigns to crop in the week to Feb. 14, and we urge all users to remain vigilant for phishing attempts via social media platforms and text messages.
Telemetry has also picked up spikes in online dating spam campaigns targeting internet users seeking a partner on dating platforms and websites. Below is a short subject list of dating email subjects sent by scammers in the first week of February:
The scammers behind the campaign send out tens of thousands of requests for online dates using revealing photos and adult-themed content among other lures. Users who take the bait can find themselves in a very tight spot. Most often the scammer convinces victims to share sensitive information and photos that can be used in blackmail and extortion attacks or wire them money. However, the risks don’t end here. Many of these bogus emails can lead recipients to malicious web pages that infect their devices with credential-stealing Trojans and other nefarious software.
Annual celebrations such as Valentine’s Day are highly anticipated events in this year’s spam calendar for fraudsters and cybercriminals, and consumers looking for the perfect gift or seeking love online are prime targets. So, before you start searching for the best Valentines promotion or go looking for a date, consider these safety tips:
Don’t let cyber thieves, heartless crooks and scams ruin your Valentine’s day this year. Check out our best-in-class security suite to protect against malicious activity and fraudulent links no matter what device you’re using to browse for gifts or look up any last-minute ideas. You can check out Bitdefender Total Security trial free of charge and enjoy 90-day of safe browsing with advanced anti-phishing and anti-fraud filtering systems that safeguard you from malicious links whether your using a PC or smart device.
You can check out our Bitdefender Total Security trial free of charge for 90-days here.
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Alina is a history buff passionate about cybersecurity and anything sci-fi, advocating Bitdefender technologies and solutions. She spends most of her time between her two feline friends and traveling.
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