Security Response

This year, Father’s Day will be celebrated on June 19th. Of course, this is an occasion that is used to express feelings towards dads for all of their love and support, often accompanied by the giving of exclusive gifts. Sadly, spammers don’t forget to send out their fake offers to target this special day. Symantec is observing an increase in spam volume related to this event, which is shown in the graph below.

Father’s Day spam can be categorized into hit-and-run spam promoting fake products, e-cards, dating, and gift card spam. Various product promotions are seen to contain products such as cigars, replica watches, wallets, and computer accessories. Once a user clicks on a fake offer, they are directed to a webpage where they are asked to divulge confidential information such as a credit card number, CVV, email address, etc. Below are some examples of this type of...

We all know spammers follow holidays and news events closely, given that spam volumes always increase before upcoming events. In the Chinese culture there are a lot of holidays based on the lunar calendar and various traditions. The most recent cultural holidays were Father’s Day (August 8) and the upcoming Chinese Valentine’s Day for loving couples is the following Monday (August 16).

We observed many product promotions for these custom holidays last year. They are mainly gift shopping advertisements from different retailers. Product and service promotions for these two holidays have been discovered lately, which doesn’t come as a surprise.
   
Sample 1: Chinese restaurant promotion
Randomized “From” line with Father’s Day-related “Subject” line, banquet menu list in the body.
From: <Details Removed>
Subject: 父親節感恩宴安排好了嗎?
   
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