Look Out! Online Scammers Are Taking Advantage Of The Barbie Movie Mania
Hollywood is on fire. In both a good way and a bad way. The good: You’ve got 3 movies, Barbie, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 and Oppenheimer currently crushing it at the box office. The bad: SAG actors are currently on the picket line striking. Oppenheimer made $82 million on opening weekend while the Barbie movie demolished everyone by bringing in $162 million during its opening weekend. The success of the Barbie movie has given the iconic toy a new life. That new life has also opened the door for online scammers to take advantage of the Barbie mania.
There have been a host of scams popping up trying to trick customers. Software security firm McAfee says, “Cyber criminals are always on the lookout for opportunities to make phishing and other scams more attractive and believable. They often leverage popular and well-publicized events such as movie premieres, concerts, or sporting events to trick users into clicking on malicious links.” In just the last 3 weeks there have been 37 different malware incidents with names related to the Barbie film. They seem to be fake Barbie websites offering ticket sales and merchandise, but the links are loaded with malware.
You may be thinking, who would actually trust these random links and click on them? Enough people out there click them that there is news of online scammers taking advantage of the Barbie movie mania. According to McAfee to avoid scams and keep your personal information, banking info, and password safe you should go with known movie sites, retailers, and streamers and only buy tickets from reputable movie theater chains and apps. Otherwise, you could be downloading a file that has a Trojan Horse on it designed to siphon your personal info, passwords, etc. For a detailed dive into the scams and how to avoid them check out the McAfee Security Blog, they have screenshots and explanations of some of the scams out there.
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