Father’s Day spam floods in, pointing to gambling websites

SophosLabs has intercepted a large number of “Buy your dad a cigar” spam messages, currently being spread across the internet in the run-up to Father’s Day this weekend.

If you click on links in the email you will typically end up on gambling websites.

Presumably the spammers are hoping to earn affiliate commission by driving traffic to the websites, and hope that the thought of buying a cigar at the last-minute for Father’s Day will be enough to get folks to click.

That or the bad guys have goofed up their attempt to earn cash pointing to cigar websites, and are pointing to other websites by mistake.

The truth is hard to determine, but one thing is clear. You shouldn’t click on links in unsolicited emails, and you should never consider purchasing products promoted to you via spam messages.

If you’re a father, I hope you have a good weekend – and receive a more pleasant gift than an unsolicited spam email…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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