Phishers target iTunes users

By Stephen Withers
Thursday, 22 May 2008 03:33

Home IT

Most of us are used to ignoring emails that seem to come from banks and similar organisations asking the recipient to "confirm your details" or "reactivate your account". Now it's time to add another business to that mental list: Apple's iTunes Store.

This week has seen the arrival of spammed emails asking people to correct problems with their iTunes accounts, according to email security provider Proofpoint.

A link in the messages takes them to a fake iTunes page that requests credit card details and other personal information useful to identity thieves and other fraudsters.

Proofpoint vice president of product marketing Andrew Lochart is being widely quoted as describing the phishing attempt as "a pretty poor job."

While the design of the fake web page matches Apple's style, no serious attempt has been made to mask the domain name used by the bogus site (kurvemageren.com).

Contrary to some reports, this is not the first time Apple customers have been the target of a phishing campaign. In January 2006, Channel Register reported a scam aimed at collecting account details from the company's customers.