Phishing Scam Alert: Phishers are targeting Apple iTunes users
With the increasing popularity of the Apple iTunes music store (iTunes is the number one music retailer in the USA) it’s not surprising that it would become the target of phishing scam.
Phishers have been sending out spam email to iTunes users stating that they need to correct their iTunes information. Within the spam email is a link, when it is clicked on it leads the unsuspecting user to a website pretending to be an iTunes billing update page. The fake page asks for the iTunes users credit card information, Social Security number, along with the mother’s maiden name.
I’m an avid iTunes user. iTunes does not ask for your Social Security number or mothers maiden name. The only time you use your credit card is when you are making a purchase. Andrew Lochart, executive for email security vendor Proofpoint, stated this is the first time that the Apple iTunes music store has been targeted.
The theft attempt is a new twist on the usual phishing attack, said Lochart. “We’ve gotten used to seeing the usual companies and brands attacked,” he said, “like PayPal, eBay and Citibank. But we’ve never seen Apple as the target.”
Lochart speculates that the phishers have targeted the new attack at iTunes users because they perceive them to be younger than the normally targeted websites. iTunes is a free downloaded and is available to Mac and Windows users.
Lochart said, “The way that teenagers and young adults use the Internet, they show a certain level of trust or openness when they post their name and age and school on MySpace.”
In the computer world “phishing” is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently access personal information. Phishers usually try to gather the following information from unsuspecting people; user names, passwords, and credit card details. Phishers masquerade as a trustworthy organization in an electronic communication.
I (as I’m sure some of you) have been targeted by phishers in the past. I’ve received phishing emails from Ebay, Paypal, and Bank of America. The simple way to avoid these types of phishing scams is to delete the email. The organizations never ask for your personal information through email. If you are still unsure, you can open up your internet browser and manually type the url of the website you have an account with to see whether there are any discrepancies. Also report the spam to the organization.
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May 24th, 2008
They must lose their record database a lot as I had to update Pay Pal twice this week and AOL four times yesterday and again today.
May 24th, 2008
Jane,
It would appear that way.
I used to get those emails (Paypal, Ebay, and Bank of America) often. I get a lot of regular emails daily, and of course the lovely spam and phishing emails are mixed up in their also.
Thankfully I don’t get the phishing spam anymore. I found a great anti-spam filtering program a few months ago, and it caught them all. I’ll be writing a review about Spam Sieve this weekend. The good thing is you can try a fully functional copy for 30 days. It was definitely worth the $30 I paid for it.
May 19th, 2009
[...] [1] iTunes users targeted in phishing scam | iLounge News [2] Phishing Scam Alert: Phishers are targeting Apple iTunes users – MAC.BLORGE [3] Phishers aim scam at Apple’s iTunes | Security Central – InfoWorld [4] AppleInsider | [...]
May 19th, 2009
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