Be Alert, Kaspersky Finds A Surge In Scam Emails Under The Guise Of The World's Famous Airline

JAKARTA - Kaspersky discovered a surge in fraudulent emails disguised as large airlines and airports, including Amsterdam Schiphol, Lufthansa, Emirates Airlines, Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways, and others.

Since early September, Kaspersky's solution has detected and blocked thousands of similar fraudulent emails around the world, the purpose of this scam is to steal funds from targeted companies.

"The fraudsters are actively imitating legitimate and formal business communications. By posing as well-known airlines in the world, they exploit their brand trust and target business aspirations," said Anna Lazaricheva, Senior Spam Analyst at Kaspersky.

From its findings, the global cybersecurity company revealed that this fake email usually claims to come from the leading airline procurement department, announcing new projects, and looking for suppliers or contractors.

After the victim responded, the attacker sent a series of fake documents, such as supplier registration forms and confidentiality agreements, in order to appear credible.

Targeted companies are also required to pay a "Refundable Deposit" of several thousand US dollars, which suggests that the goal is to secure priority slots and will be returned once a " partnership" is established.

"Because the documents shared in this scheme are not dangerous, but are fake, they can easily pass basic security checks and seem convincing to ordinary people," Anna continued.

Given this attack, Kaspersky advised the organization to:

Verification of senders: Always check domain names and contact details Beware of all forms of deposits: The company that is valid does not ask for advance payments to register as a supplier of Document Research: Look for inconsistencies in employee logos, languages, and educational formats: Train procurement and finance teams to recognize fraudulent tactics that are common to use advanced security solutions: apply email security tools, to detect suspicious patterns and block fraudulent emails before entering the inbox.