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New scam targets Apple App Store patrons

Online crooks are taking advantage of iPhone and iPad owners with a new, ingeniously timed phishing campaign designed to scare them into giving up personal information.
/ Source: SecurityNewsDaily

Online crooks are taking advantage of iPhone and iPad owners with a new, ingeniously timed phishing campaign designed to scare them into giving up personal information.

Just purchased an app? Watch out.
Just purchased an app? Watch out.

The scam emails, spotted by researchers at the security firm F-Secure, appear to be from the "Apple AppStore," with a message informing the recipient that their app order "has been successfully cancelled." Users are directed to click on a link titled "order information," to get to the bottom of the problem.

The link, of course, is malicious, and takes you to a drugstore website, F-Secure warns.

The true danger of this scam, however, is its cunning timing: the phony Apple AppStore message appears in email inboxes immediately after you purchase an app from Apple's legitimate App Store. F-Secure is not sure how the scammers know you just bought something from the App Store. [The Era of Mac Malware Immunity Is Over]

While landing on a pharmaceutical site may be nothing more than an inconvenience, if the phishers behind this plot were to reconfigure the corrupted link to direct traffic to a phony Apple Web page, it's possible even the savviest Apple customers could become unwilling victims of identity theft.