The Clifton, N.J.-based Comodo Antispam Labs identified a malware attack targeting customers of Pandora Jewelers, an international Danish jewelry manufacturer and retailer known for its customizable charm bracelets, rings and necklaces.
"Email phishing activity rises dramatically as the holiday season is upon us – and Pandora Jewelers is a new phishing target, using language that capitalizes on the public's desire for an extreme sale," a blog post on the Comodo website stated.
Scammers often advertise big-ticket items to lure unsuspecting consumers to click on links. They then build complete copies of well-known sites, send emails promoting deals, sell products and take credit card information – but never deliver the goods.
In this case, the email attempted to capture credit card and other financial information from businesses or consumers when they tried to make a purchase. The spoofing threat arrived from the sender address [email protected] with the subject line "Pandora Clearance."
A screen shot of the email revealed that it appeared to come from a jewelry reseller advertising a Pandora Jewelry sale. Pandora Jewelry typically allows its official resellers to promote the sale of their products via their own store websites and through email promotions, making this phishing email especially dangerous for unsuspecting victims.
The Comodo Antispam Labs team identified the Pandora phishing email through IP, domain and URL analysis. The links provided in the email directed individuals to http://www.bestpandorajewelry.com/index.html instead of the retailer's genuine website, http://www.pandora.net.
Last week, Comodo identified another phishing attack targeting business and consumer users of Alibaba.com, a global, Chinese e-commerce site that has some 400 million active users.
"Phishing emails are one of the biggest threats for technology users today, because they are abusing the trust that is built between consumers, business and brands," Fatih Orhan, director of technology for Comodo and the Comodo Antispam Labs, said. "The hackers are pretending to be from a trustworthy entity such as a business owner, an e-commerce site or a popular social network, with the intention to steal customer credentials and/or financial information."
Orhan added the Comodo Antispam Labs team analyzes more than 1,000,000 potential pieces of phishing, spam or other malicious/unwanted emails per day.
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Roy Urrico
Roy W. Urrico specializes in articles about financial technology and services for Credit Union Times, as well as ghostwriting, copywriting, and case studies. Also: writer/editor of a semi-annual newsletter for Association for Financial Technology since 1997 and history projects funded by the U.S Interior Department, National Park Service and Warren County (N.Y.).
