The impersonating message to Toyota leads to a lottery at the end of which a malicious application must be downloaded to the device.
Photo: Yinon Ben-Shoshan
Did you receive a notification about participating in the lottery? This is a scam:
lately we are aware of the hackers' efforts to be more sophisticated, as they tailor the scams to us according to areas of interest and special events.
The new scam: a raffle in honor of the "100th anniversary of Toyota" where you can win the Galaxy S21.
In the first stage, after easing the link in the WhatsApp message, you come to a page that says that there are many great gifts, and more than 1,000 units of watches and smartphones.
All you have to do to win is open the right gift box and for that there are only 3 attempts.
Now you come to the gift selection when you will be presented with 12 gift boxes to choose from.
Once you choose the right box (they are all right), you will win the Galaxy S21.
To receive the prize, you will be asked to share the activity with five groups or 20 members on WhatsApp.
In fact, of course this is a way to spread the scam to other contacts.
After that, you will reach the final stage where you need to open a 30-second registration, and after you finish, the system administrator will perform a test that will be completed within 24 hours.
When you click on the action button - "Full registration" you get a message that "Samsung cleaning" is required right now.
Please note:
Although you will have two options - cancel or install, no matter which option you choose, the click will take you to the Google app store.
"When the app is working, it appears to be collecting information related to the device's memory, battery usage and cache," say information security company ESET.
"Our investigation shows that the purpose of the scam is to get users to download the app, which in the future mainly jumps advertisements," says Idan Abramov, from the service and support department at the information security company ESET Israel.
"Pop-up advertisements on the mobile device are a nuisance that should be acted upon to stop it and not interfere with the day-to-day activities.