Cybercrime exploits the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17

Security experts at TrendMicro have detected a spam campaign via Twitter which exploits the incident occurred to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.

Unfortunately, tragedies like the one occurred to the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 or the recent escalation in Gaza are excellent occasions for cyber criminals that try to exploit the public attention to carry out illegal activities.

Cyber criminals could arrange spam campaign and phishing attacks to collect victims’ personal information and serve malware.

Security experts have observed cyber attacks which are explicitly using news on the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash to deceive Internet users.  Media agencies sustain that the Boeing 777 Flight MH17 of the Malaysia Airlines,  carrying 298 individuals (including passengers and crew members), was struck by a missile launched by a mobile ground station.

Russian and Ukrainian governments are exchanging mutual accusations on the terroristic attack, public opinion is blaming pro-Russian separatist rebels sustaining that the Kremlin is helping them to destroy the clues.

Social media are flooded with news and images on the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, cyber criminals are using social engineering techniques to spread malware tricking victims into visit compromised web site.

Experts at security firm Trend Micro have detected tweets written in the Indonesian language which spread news related to the crash of the Malaysias Airlines Flight MH17, the tweet includes the hashtag #MH17 to lure victims that search for information on the incident.

The cyber criminals behind this malicious campaign started their operations just after the crash on July 17th, one of the tweet states:

The message was retwetted by hundreds of users, that in an unconscious were advantaging the scammers spreading the malicious links.