The SmartSwipe Online Security, Shopping and Technology Blog

While I have been following online scams for quite awhile, every once in a while, I read about one that makes my blood boil. Yesterday, I heard about a phishing scam that made me pretty angry and today, I got enough confirmation to write an article about it.

There is a phishing email going around right now that says that people who were vaccinated against H1N1 have to go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) web site to create a "Personal H1N1 Vaccination Profile". And, when people click on the link to create their profile, they are directed to a site which will steal their personal health information and (in some cases) try to infect their computers with malicious software.

H1N1 has many people scared for their health. Fear causes people to behave in an irrational way, so when people get emails like this, many will click right away. They want to be in compliance, and they want to feel safe. So, an attack like this is little more than an attempt to manipulate frightened people. To steal a line from my favourite aunt, "where did they go to cool school?"

Put yourself in a victim's shoes. Perhaps your child was just vaccinated and you are still a little bit scared by all the rumours circulating about the vaccination. If you are concerned about your child's health, wouldn't you want to register him/her on the CDC's web site? Would you suspect that registering your child would increase the amount of resources devoted to monitoring his/her health? And, in light of these feelings, do you think you might fall for a scam like this?

For the record, the CDC has not implemented a vaccination profile program and they do not require people to register on their web site. Please spread the word and make sure that everyone you know knows that this scam is circulating.