O2 customers hit by phishing scam during network outage

O2 CUSTOMERS were the target of cyber criminals during the mobile network's high-profile outage earlier this week, as a phishing campaign hit already irked O2 subscribers.

INQUIRER readers told us that they had received a number of dodgy emails that claimed to be from O2 during the two-day period that they were left without a phone signal.

One reader said, "On top of [the network outage] the phishers have started. As a non-O2 customer already had an email today from O2 supposedly with a link to login to my O2 account to activate new security measures to get back online."

O2 was unavailable to confirm the reports at the time of writing, but Kaspersky researcher David Emm told us that such an attack would fit in with cyber criminals' attack patterns.

"We've become used to spammers and phishers piggy-backing all kinds of newsworthy stories - natural disasters, major sporting events, gossip about the latest celebrity and more. Their aim is to cash-in on such stories by trying to get people to respond to their spam messages," Emm said.

"It seems that the recent O2 problem has become the latest springboard for cybercriminals' activities. They're sending out messages claiming to be from O2: they ask customers to click on a link and log in to their account to activate new security measures that will get them back online.

"Unfortunately, the link doesn't take you to O2's site, but to a fraudulent site created by the cybercriminals, where they capture your login details." µ