Memorial Day is celebrated on May 27 and it is a day for memorializing the men and women who have died in military service for the United States. It is a common practice for cybercriminals to take advantage of events and holidays. This year, various spam messages related to Memorial Day have begun flowing into the Symantec Probe Network. We have observed that most of the spam samples encourage users to take advantage of clearance sales on cars and trucks. Clicking the URL will automatically redirect the user to a website containing some bogus offer.
Figure 1: Memorial Day financial spam
A variety of subject lines have been observed related to the clearance sale spam attacks for Memorial Day:
- Subject: Memorial Day Auto Special On Every New Truck
- Subject: Memorial Day Celebration – Half Off xxx Vehicles
- Subject: Memorial Day Special, All Auto Models On-Sale
- Subject: Memorial Day Savings on all new vehicles
- Subject: Memorial Day xxx Clearance Sale
- Subject: Huge new car Memorial Day Clearance!
Other spam samples have encouraged users to take advantage of bogus offers on weight loss and pharmaceutical products. After clicking the URL, users are taken to a web page where the fake products are sold. Users should be wary of spam attacks offering deals like these.
Figure 2: Memorial Day weight loss spam
Figure 3: Fake pharmaceutical web page for Memorial Day
Symantec advises our readers to be cautious when handling unsolicited or unexpected emails. We, at Symantec, are constantly monitoring spam attacks to ensure that readers are kept up-to-date with information on the latest threats.