'Congratulations Google User! You've Been Selected' Pop-Up Scam
'Congratulations Google User! You've Been Selected' is a common scheme that can be attributed to numerous hoax pages. Even though some are targeted at Apple users specifically, while others try to reach the biggest possible number of potential victims, these sites all operate in a virtually identical manner. Whenever users land on such a page, they are presented with a pop-up window showing a variation of the 'Congratulations Google User! You've Been Selected' message. The pop-up specifies that the user has been selected to receive a valuable prize, as a gesture of appreciation from Google. The supposed gifts might include a Samsung device, the latest iPhone model, a Walmart gift card or all three…
The bait message is designed to sound as appealing as possible intentionally. It often also includes a line about the number of available prizes being limited and urging users to act quickly and register. The page could next require the user to complete a simple quiz of 3 or 4 questions or just outright redirect to a different page with phishing capabilities. Here, visitors will be asked to provide numerous details under the guise of information required for the shipping of the alleged prize. The phishing page might inquire about emails, home addresses, social media accounts, phone numbers, age and full names. The fraudsters can then abuse the collected information to run spear-phishing attacks or sell the data to other cybercriminals.
Being presented with offers that sound way too good to be true, especially if they are presented by a random website that appeared during your browsing suddenly, should be enough to ring more than a few alarm bells. Keep in mind that if noticing such pages appearing abnormally frequently, this could be a sign that a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program) has managed to sneak itself onto your device or computer. It is advised to perform an anti-malware scan with a professional security solution and then remove all suspicious applications that are detected.
