Social media scam campaigns and electronic platforms are becoming a common problem, and scam operators are always looking for new topics to attract unsuspecting users. Over the past week, hundreds of users across Latin America have been reporting a scam involving the famous company Coca-Cola.
According to reports, the operators of this malicious campaign send messages to victims via WhatsApp assuring them that they can win a free refrigerator from the cooling company. The goal of hackers is to steal users’ personal and financial data and be able to empty their bank accounts.
“Have you seen how beautiful the fridges Coca-Cola are giving us?” is the message that has been sent massively through hundreds of WhatsApp chats; attached to this message, a link is included that redirects victims to a malicious website.
If the user falls into the trap and decides to enter the website, a registration form will appear. The website informs victims that they must complete this form to participate for the prize and forward the message to their WhatsApp contacts. Once this process is complete, threat actors will have access to the user’s agenda.
This is a new variant of a classic phishing attack, in which criminals impersonate some trusted person, company or service to obtain confidential information from victims. Inadvertently, those affected provide bank account and credit card information.
Needless to say the alleged promotion of coca-Cola fridge is fake so users should ignore any messages of this nature. This kind of scams was one of the fastest growing cybercriminal trends over the past year, cybersecurity specialists say. Because WhatsApp is one of the most important communication platforms in the world, this is one of the main means of attack used by cybercriminals.
He is a cyber security and malware researcher. He studied Computer Science and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2006. He is actively working as an cyber security investigator. He also worked for different security companies. His everyday job includes researching about new cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in enterprise security implementation.