Cybercriminals target Pottermore website to infect fans

Posted on Aug 8 2011 - 2:43pm by Julius

As far as internet security is concerned, it may be a bit more dangerous to be a fan of Harry Potter than to be an official of the government.

It was reported that cybercriminals and scammers have been taking advantage of the continuing increase of interest over J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore, an interactive Harry Potter website gearing up for its October launch. The scammers, first discovered by Chris Boyd, are selling early access to the website, either by selling fake access on eBay for £62 ($100), or asking for personal information to register accounts and then dumping their computers with malware.

Early access to the Pottermore website does exist, but only by going through the proper registration and completing a magical quill challenge on the website. According to the website’s terms of service, buying and selling of Pottermore accounts are against its terms of service – and simply foolish.

The site’s official blog says, “Access to Pottermore is, and always will be, completely free so please don’t be tempted by people selling Pottermore accounts online. You will only be wasting your money – and there are still more clues and chances to come!” The transfer of accounts is also prohibited, and according to the site, “We have the right to terminate any Pottermore accounts that are sold online.”

Interest in the Pottermore website is getting abused by these scammers as part of their “search engine poisoning” scam, which is designed to trick fans into scareware portals that run scans of victims’ PCs to fool them into buying fake security software.

 

via: IT World

1 Comment so far. Feel free to join this conversation.

  1. Mary Martins Attanas August 9, 2011 at 11:06 pm - Reply

    Arthur…that's what I was talking about…..

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