Japanese Relief – Buyer Beware

If we use history as a guide, it will only be a matter of time before cyber criminals exploit the victims of the Japanese disaster, and those who want to help. As we have seen countless times in the past, cyber criminals look for any opportunity to take advantage of people. They often use a technique called “social engineering” to trick people into giving them what they want (e.g. passwords, money, personal information, etc.). This technique becomes especially effective during high profile public events, such as the disaster in Japan, where they distribute spam and poison search engines with links to malicious websites. As seen with the Haiti earthquake in 2010, they also are able to setup fake charities to steal money directly. So, if you are looking for information on the event, or interested in donating to a relief fund, we recommend using mainstream, well established news sources and relief organizations.