Brits a top target for swine flu spammers

 

Gallery

By Reuters

Posted on 16 Nov 2009 at 17:21

Criminal gangs are making millions of dollars out of the swine flu pandemic by selling fake drugs over the internet - with Britain among the top five targets.

Security firm Sophos claims to have intercepted hundreds of millions of fake pharmaceutical spam adverts and websites this year, many of them trying to sell counterfeit antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu to worried customers.

Tamiflu is the frontline drug recommended by the World Health Organisation to treat and slow the progression of flu symptoms.

The criminals can be members of more than one affiliate network, and some have boasted of earning more than $100,000 per day

Sophos says many of the gangs behind the sites were based in Russia and the top five countries buying fake Tamiflu and other medicines on the internet were the US, Germany, Britain, Canada and France.

Sophos's senior technology consultant Graham Cluley says a "worrying trend" toward stockpiling Tamiflu had already been seen in Britain - Europe's worst-hit country in the swine flu pandemic so far.

"As more and more cases of swine flu... come to light, it is essential that we all resist the panic-induced temptation to purchase Tamiflu online," he says.

"The criminal gangs working behind the scenes at fake internet pharmacies are putting their customers' health, personal information and credit card details at risk."

Sophos claims criminal gangs were operating medicines websites branded as the "Canadian Pharmacy" to try to appear genuine. Its research shows that on one network operating out of Russia, called Glavmed, it was possible to earn an average of $16,000 a day promoting pharmaceutical websites.

"But the criminals can be members of more than one affiliate network, and some have boasted of earning more than $100,000 per day," Cluley claims.