Scammers are aiming to exploit interest in the Wimbledon tennis tournament to steal users’ banking details, according to security experts at Sophos.
Senior technology consultant at the company, Graham Cluley, warned in a blog post that a phishing email claiming to come from HSBC has the subject line “Claim your ticket at Wimbledon”.
The email congratulates the recipient on having won two free tickets to the tournament, asking them to complete the attached form in order to claim them. It even assures the reader, “the form has been designed to ensure that your details are secure”.
“Opening the file to unlock your prize, however, is not such a good idea as it contains a form which asks for all sorts of personal information about your bank account – including your date of birth, memorable names, card security code and so forth,” wrote Cluley. “The scam earns some extra credibility because HSBC is a genuine sponsor of the Wimbledon tennis tournament, and there was indeed a competition held by the bank to meet Tim Henman.”
He warned users to be suspicious of any unsolicited emails of this kind. The widespread availability of phishing toolkits on the web has meant a steady rise in the number of phishing attacks.
Earlier this month security researchers uncovered a new set of targeted phishing attacks aimed at users of the Microsoft Hotmail and Yahoo Mail services.
