World Cup is now a scam email

Not only footballers are gearing up for this month's World Cup extravaganza in South Africa, fraudsters are also aiming at FIFA. 

Football governing body FIFA has already warned supporters to be wary over various forms of scams that are likely to crop up in the run-up to the start of the tournament, which kicks off in ten days time.

Spam emails touting 419-lite lottery scams themed around the World Cup are already in circulation (as recorded by Trend Micro here and here). More can be expected to follow as excitement builds towards the start of the tournament next month. Security watchers report that scam emails seen thus far have not been sent through botnet networks of compromised PCs but via direct spamming from known Nigeria-based 419 scam-friendly IP addresses.

FIFA lottery, prize draw or competition scams are expected to be in abundance. All of the types of advanced fee fraud where fraudsters attempt to trick prospective marks into paying "administrative fees" supposedly needed to secure non-existent World Cup tickets or cash prizes. So, it’s said "Prize draws and competitions offering tickets to the 2010 FIFA World Cup can only be held by companies who are commercially affiliated with FIFA, such as, for example, sponsors.

FIFA also used the notice to issue a warning against ticket touts and unauthorized agents, a more standard message that has preceded every recent World Cup.

Search engine manipulation, themed around events at the World Cup and designed to divert users searching for video clips and news towards scareware portals, is also likely to crop up, among other types of malware attack, especially once the tournament kicks off. So, football fans receiving the email were encouraged to download a hacking tool that posed as a football-themed application.

MessageLabs has already started intercepting World Cup-themed email-borne malware attacks.  So, a dedicated website  was launched in order to track and warn football fans about net threats connected with the World Cup. 2010NetThreat will also feature security advice, competitions and news on the tournament itself.