The Ice Bucket Challenge raising money for research leading to find a cure of ALS . Researchers found that the most of the donation is diverted to the acconts of the cybercriminals, there is also possibility of phishing, the fake pages collect all the details entered in the forms and send them to a anonymous location.
“There might be some hackers taking advantage of your kindness and donations. Hackers can easily set up a spoofed website that looks like any of those donation websites and spread the word on social networks to attract victims,” researchers at Barracuda Labs say.
Social networks are the cause for landing the victims in such malicious location and taking away there details as well emptying there bank accounts
Users need to be careful when donations are made, check the website URL of thew website the offer secure communication between the server and the client through an encrypted connection (HTTPS).
Steven Sundermeier, owner of the company, said that exploiting the Ice Bucket Challenge is a sure matter, as crooks never lose an opportunity to make easy money, all the more this one, which sees “high-profile celebrities getting involved and the challenge going global.”
“Cybercriminals have a long history of capitalizing on the hottest trends and latest headlines to disguise their evil doings,” he added.
“I feel it’s only a matter of time before fake ALS donation websites start polluting the Internet and social networking sites and other scams start surfacing,” Sundermeier concluded.
