Pharmaceutical scammers spamvertise YouTube themed emails, entice users into purchasing counterfeit drugs


By Dancho Danchev

Pharmaceutical scammers are currently spamvertising a YouTube themed email campaign, attempting to socially engineer users into clicking on the links found in the legitimately looking emails.

Upon clicking on the fake YouTube personal message notification, users are redirected to a website reselling popular counterfeit drugs. The cybercriminals behind the campaign then earn revenue through an affiliate network.

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Spamvertised ‘Work at Home” scams impersonating CNBC spotted in the wild


By Dancho Danchev

Online scammers often promise you the moon in exchange for virtually nothing besides a modest financial investment. They are largely successful due to the high number of socially engineered customers. However, sometimes they tend to play by the rules in order to avoid legal responsibility for the business failure of those who purchased the “too good to be true” product.

In this post, I’ll profile a currently circulating “Work At Home” scam that’s successfully and professionally impersonating CNBC in an attempt to add more legitimacy to its market proposition – the Home Business System.

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Spamvertised ‘YouTube Video Approved’ and ‘Twitter Support” themed emails lead to pharmaceutical scams


By Dancho Danchev

Just like true marketers interested in improving the click-through rates of their campaign, pharmaceutical scammers are constantly looking for new ways to attract traffic to their fraudulent sites.

From compromised web shells on web sites with high page rank, the impersonation of legitimate brands, to the development of co-branding campaigns, pharmaceutical scammers persistently rotate the traffic acquisition tactics in an attempt to trick more end users into purchasing their counterfeit pharmaceutical items.

In this post, I’ll profile two currently spamvertised campaigns impersonating YouTube and Twitter, ultimately redirecting end users to pharmaceutical scams.

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Research: U.S accounts for 72% of fraudulent pharmaceutical orders


By Dancho Danchev

Just how profitable is spam? Who’s buying the counterfeit pharmaceutical items advertised so heavily in a huge percentage of the spam campaigns currently circulating in the wild?

According to a newly released report by the University of California at San Diego, although hundreds of thousands of people visit the fraudulent pharmaceutical scam sites, only a small percentage of them is actually purchasing the counterfeit pharmaceutical items.

In this particular case, the United States leads with 72% of total purchases from fraudulent pharmaceutical sites.

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Spamvertised ‘You have 1 lost message on Facebook’ campaign leads to pharmaceutical scams


By Dancho Danchev

A currently spamvertised spam campaign is redirecting users to pharmaceutical scams, in an attempt to trick them into purchasing counterfeit pharmaceutical items.

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