Netizens warned vs. Christmas, New Year greetings with malicious intent

A team of cybersecurity experts on Monday warned the public against fraudulent Christmas and New Year greetings sent through popular messaging platforms with malicious intent.

In a Facebook post, Cybersecurity Philippines CERT, a non-profit computer security incident response team, advised the public to be careful in opening greetings sent through messengers as they may expose their devices and accounts to vulnerabilities.

According to the group, the victim will receive a greeting notification through popular messengers. Once the victim opens the greeting, it will redirect them to malicious websites.

After the victim is redirected to these sites, he or she will be prompted to input his or her data while a malicious file runs.

A malicious script will then conduct service execution and credential access, and will send a similar message to the contacts of the victim.

Cybersecurity Philippines advised those who may be victimized by these greetings to immediately change the passwords for their banking and social media accounts.

They should likewise reset their browsers, update their anti-malware softwares and conduct a system scan.

The group also said that before opening the greeting, one should confirm first with the sender if he or she indeed sent the message. —KBK, GMA News