Cybercriminals Take Advantage of Israeli-Hamas Conflict Through Phony Donation Requests and Web Links
Cybersecurity researchers said Monday they have identified a scam donation campaign that exploits the war between Israel and Hamas through malicious emails and fake websites.
According to Kaspersky research, cybercriminals have so far spread more than 500 scam messages and created fraudulent websites to speed up the money transfer process.
Experts noted an increase in scam emails written in English asking for false donations to those affected by the conflict. The company’s information security solutions detected more than 540 such e-mail messages.
“In these e-mails, scammers try to create several variations of text to avoid spam filters. For example, they use different solicitations for donations, such as ‘we ask for your compassion and goodwill’ or ‘we call for empathy and generosity’, and replace the words ‘help’ with synonyms such as ‘support’, ‘help “. ,’ etc.,” said Kaspersky security expert Andrey Kovtun.
In addition, they change links and sender addresses. The links used in the emails lead to a scam site. This website provides users with context about the conflict, displays photos, and encourages them to make donations. Scammers facilitate easy money transfer by offering options for various cryptocurrency transactions – Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether and Litecoin, according to the report.
Experts found fraudulent websites that claimed to collect aid for other groups in the conflict zone. These cyber attackers use sophisticated social engineering techniques to take advantage of people’s desire to help and their sympathy in an attempt to lure potential victims into making fake donations in order to steal money.
“To avoid scams, you should go through the pages carefully before donating. Fake sites often lack essential information about charity organizers, recipients, legitimate documentation or transparency about the use of funds. The following security measures should be implemented,” the security researchers advised.
