The 2010 Winter Olympics were held in Vancouver, Canada, from February 12-28. With more than 82 countries participating and millions across the globe catching day-to-day action, it was sadly quite obvious that we would see spam attacks centered on this event. However, the volume of spam relating to the Winter Olympics is actually very low, which is unlike the Beijing Olympics, when spam campaigns had started way before actual event. In the case of the Winter Olympics, spammers seem to be only now waking up from their slumber.
Spammers have only recently started using references to the Winter Olympics in their spam email messages, and are offering different promotional schemes for health and weight loss products. The scammers are offering various discounts on the medications that are being offered through spam emails. Upon clicking the URL link provided by the spammers, the user is redirected to an online drug store that sells cheap, discounted “medicines.”
The popularity of major events is often exploited by spammers in the form of spam campaigns to draw the attention of email users. Though it is unlikely that we’ll see any major variation in the volume of spam related to the Winter Olympics, we still expect spam showing videos or highlights of the event even after the closing ceremonies have finished. We caution users not to open or click on the links or attachments of unsolicited spam emails.