Warning out versus Olympics-themed cyberscams

It's not just athletes preparing for the Summer Olympics in the United Kingdom this year, as so are cybercriminals, who have come up with their Olympic-themed scams, a computer security firm said.   Trend Micro said the scam claims to offer a chance to win a trip to the opening or closing ceremonies of the Olympics – while actually installing malware that can steal a user's personal data.   "Your personal information is not worth the risk of a chance to win a non-existent chance to win a lottery. Before clicking on that email link, investigate," Trend Micro said in a blog post.   One such offer claims to be from credit card firm Visa, supposedly inviting users to join a lottery for a chance to win a travel package for the Olympics.   A screenshot showed the supposed package included tickets to the "Opening or Closing Ceremony," travel to and from London, accommodation at a four-star hotel, and two Visa prepaid cards.   "Note that the said offer is non-existent," Trend Micro said.   Trend Micro also said it had spotted malware that arrives as a file named Early Check-In 2012 London Olympics.doc.   It said the file, detected as TROJ_ARTIEF.XPL, exploits the RTF Stack Buffer Overflow Vulnerability found in several versions of Microsoft Office components.   Should it be activated, it may drop several other malware on a victim's system, which Trend Micro detects as TROJ_DROPHIN.A and TROJ_PHINDOLP.A.   Trend Micro said that cybercriminals using the Olympics to get users clicking is in fact, nothing new, citing several precedents in the recent past.   As early as 2008, it had spotted a spammed message purporting to be a lottery drawn by the London 2012 Olympics committee.   In May 2011, it also reported on a spam campaign that used London 2012 Olympics as bait.   "(O)ur social engineering e-guide mentions seasons and events as jump off points used by crooks. Online deals that look like they’re too good to be true, suspicious email messages promoting great but non-existent offers are also some of the tools used to lure users. All these tactics may lead to you inadvertently giving out your personal information, or for malware to be downloaded on your computer," Trend Micro warned. - AMD, GMA News