Trend Micro warns of 419-style World Cup scams

Cyber criminals are stepping up their World Cup campaigns

Security experts are warning of yet more internet related scams designed to capitalise on this summer's World Cup tournament in South Africa by parting unsuspecting users from their cash.

Gelo Abendan, of Trend Micro's technical comms team, wrote in a blog post of two separate spam runs exploiting the upcoming event.

The first arrives in a .doc email attachment informing recipients of a 'Final Draw' competition run in part by the FIFA Organising Committee and offering a $550,000 (£380,000) prize.

"To claim this, however, the 'winner' must immediately co-ordinate with the releasing agent via the contact information indicated in the email. The email also asks the recipient to give out personal information," wrote Abendan.

The second scam arrives as a poorly written email and PDF attachment which employs 419 tactics to try to get the recipient to part with fund transfer banking information to get their 30 per cent share of a non-existent $10.5m (£7.3m) jackpot.

"Both scams do not directly ask for cash, but request information or for the recipients to co-ordinate with a fake contact accompanied by a call to action to send in their contact details," said Abendan.

"Simply put, the cyber criminals behind these scams use the internet to commit crimes such as identity theft, spamming, phishing and other types of fraud."