Watch out for scams surrounding news of stolen celeb photos

Symantec Security Blog: Watch out for scams surrounding news of stolen celebrity photos

3 September 2014

It’s all over the news—private photographs of celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton, were posted online over the weekend. Based on the widespread interest in this story, Symantec is warning users about scams around this narrative.

Apple ID phishing
Whether or not iCloud was the point of compromise in this incident, scammers have been interested in stealing these credentials for some time. Symantec previously wrote about email scams claiming to be from Apple support asking users to update or verify their Apple IDs (Apple IDs are used for setting up an iCloud account). These emails contain links to phishing websites that will capture your Apple ID credentials and send them back to the attackers.

Searching for celebrity’s photos and videos
Since this story broke, users have taken to various social networks and search engines to look for news about the stolen photographs. Knowing that people are searching for this content, it hasn’t taken long for scammers to try to take advantage of it.

Words of advice
Because the person responsible for sharing these images stated that they would have more to show in the coming days, Symantec strongly encourages users not to click on links that offer additional photos or video footage of these celebrities. Those links could lead to phishing sites or software downloads of malware or adware.

Users should also be wary of emails or text messages claiming to be from Apple support, security, or protection groups. Don’t click on any links in these emails and never send your Apple ID credentials in a text message.

You can view the full article here and do let us know if you’ll like to speak to a Symantec spokesperson if you have further questions.

Many thanks,
Debbie

ENDS

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