Everyone wants to cash in on the festive season, and this time around spammers for sure. The cyber security experts foresee nearly 20% hike in spam messages during this Diwali, the spams are expected to be embedded with trojans, Keyloggers and other malicious software’s.
 

Ranked sixth in the list of top spam originating countries, India definitely has become spammers delight. Mr Shantanu Ghosh, Vice-President, India Product Operations, Symantec Software said, during this Diwali, a sharp rise in spam is inevitable, with spammers sending promotional marketing material, glittered with various offers. Clicking or downloading attachments, attached with the mail could set-off virus, giving hackers access to your personal details including bank account and credit card information.

The reason why festive season will result beneficial for spammers is due to a simple reason that internet users are less suspicious to click on a mail from an unknown source during this period. Also the fact that people by large tend to shop in this period and are looking for best offers, which makes them prone to opening a mails that promise discounts and freebies. Spammers bundle malware mails, adorning a discount or a greeting tag to it, luring users to click and unleash virus on their PC, said Mr Kartik Shahani, Regional Director (India and SAARC), McAfee.

In the past, spammers have made use of user’s interest, such as the US Presidential election and Beijing Olympics to lure unsuspecting e-mail users.

In order to safe guard your PC and information data, users need to make sure that they do not click on attachment in e-mails that seems suspicious and where the sender is unknown. It is also important to not only install security software but also update it regularly, said Mr Ghosh from Symantec Software. X

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