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Online Users Beware Attacks

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Wednesday 12th March 2008



Leading Internet security specialists Symantec has found an increasing number of ‘phishing’ attacks aimed at players of online casinos licensed in small countries.

The company behind the Norton brand of security software stated that it found a recent wave of e-mail swindlers approaching gamblers at online casinos operating from Antigua and the Dutch Antilles as it was putting together its Internet Security Threat Report. It stated that a real need now exists for users to be alert because criminals are attempting to trick gamblers at a number of unnamed online casinos.

Symantec said users should beware ‘phishing’ attacks in which criminals attempt to trick users into divulging credit card and personal information that is then used to raid accounts. Because the perpetrators are usually based in a different nation from their victims, they employ middlemen who drain funds from compromised online bank accounts before wiring it somewhere else usually utilising hard to trace money transfers such as Western Union.

“In part, this is because gambling sites that use real money as opposed to free poker sites, for instance, are illegal in the United States,” said Marvin Fabuli from Symantec.

“In other countries, online gambling is legal but can only be operated out of countries that have been approved by the government such as Antigua, Costa Rica and the Dutch Antilles. In Canada, the Kahnawake native reserve is hosting online gambling despite the fact that it is illegal to do so in that country.”

 


Source: OnlineCasinoNews