Beware 'Watch FIFA World Cup Online' and other championship scams

Updated

The 2010 World Cup is off to an exciting start, with a couple of upsets, plenty of stunt dives, and the now-iconic background buzz drone of the vuvuzela (now Twittering too).

But what about Internet scams? Any big event focusing the world's eyeballs brings out the worst in web criminals. In the run-up to South Africa 2010, we've seen a couple of spam attacks, including an e- mail targeting Brazilian executives with the subject line, "Se o Brasil ganhar VOCE tambem ganha!" (basically, "if Brazil wins, this is what you'll win"), carrying an infected file designed to link gullible recipients to a botnet. Then there's the garden-variety bogus ticket sales sites (in short, only FIFA and its partners sell real tickets), and World Cup lottery scam sites. Nothing really to worry about there, if you've got your wits about you.

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