If you want to spot an online scam then it pays to know your pop culture.
So says Chris Boyd, a veteran of the anti-malware world who spends his working life spotting and exposing cyber cons, online come-ons and web-based scams for security firm Malwarebytes.
"Increasingly the bad guys are drilling down into the cultural underpinnings so we have to do this too," he says.
The con artists who create the scams are experts at spotting a corner of modern culture ripe for their particular brand of exploitation. They do it because, ultimately, all the scammers want you to do is click on a link.
Hence their propensity for prompting an argument among already committed fans (1D versus The Vamps) or tickling a controversy (such as whether the batsuit worn by Ben Affleck in stills from the next Batman movie is inspired by Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns or not).
Sometimes, he reveals, the scammers deliberately get it a little bit wrong just to get the fanboys and fangirls to react - which in the case of online scams would be to make them follow a link they think will give them a chance to refute a muddle-headed opinion. Instead, it takes them to a page that tries to install unwanted spyware or adware and maybe seeks to steal online credentials.
"We do make these things easy for the scammers," he said. "We need to educate people about the way to avoid falling victim to these things.
If you want to spot an online scam then it pays to know your pop culture.
So says Chris Boyd, a veteran of the anti-malware world who spends his working life spotting and exposing cyber cons, online come-ons and web-based scams for security firm Malwarebytes.
"Increasingly the bad guys are drilling down into the cultural underpinnings so we have to do this too," he says.
The con artists who create the scams are experts at spotting a corner of modern culture ripe for their particular brand of exploitation. They do it because, ultimately, all the scammers want you to do is click on a link.
Hence their propensity for prompting an argument among already committed fans (1D versus The Vamps) or tickling a controversy (such as whether the batsuit worn by Ben Affleck in stills from the next Batman movie is inspired by Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns or not).
Sometimes, he reveals, the scammers deliberately get it a little bit wrong just to get the fanboys and fangirls to react - which in the case of online scams would be to make them follow a link they think will give them a chance to refute a muddle-headed opinion. Instead, it takes them to a page that tries to install unwanted spyware or adware and maybe seeks to steal online credentials.
"We do make these things easy for the scammers," he said. "We need to educate people about the way to avoid falling victim to these things.
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