Cybercriminals don't even stop them at Christmas.
The security company Bitdefender has identified numerous campaigns that take advantage of the Christmas theme to try to deceive as many users as possible.
Among them, a fake chain of "letters to Santa", designed to steal login credentials and credit card information.
The campaign, spread via email, invites parents to provide personal and payment details to receive a special package at home containing an "official" wish list certification and a letter signed by Santa Claus.
This is one of the most widespread criminal operations in recent days, coinciding with an increase in spam traffic detected by Bitdefender globally.
The company explains that the volume of holiday-themed spam, fraudulent messages that often prompt clicks on hoax sites, has been on the rise since November 27, with peaks observed between December 6 and 9.
71% of all Christmas-themed spam between November 27 and December 12 was found to be for the purpose of data theft.
31% of Christmas spam emails targeted users in the US, 24% in Ireland, followed by France, Sweden and Denmark at 7%.
At the bottom of the list Italy and Australia, where Christmas spam concerned only 1% of all that observed in the period.
The scams mainly focus on delivering bogus offers, gift cards and sweepstakes to steal shopper data, exploiting the popularity of well-known brands such as Netflix.
In the latter case,
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