'POWERBALL OFFICIAL 2020 WINNINGS' Email Scam
The 'POWERBALL OFFICIAL 2020 WINNINGS' email scam is a spam campaign dedicated to sending deceptive email messages to Internet users on a mass-scale. As the name of this fraud suggests, con artists use the legit American lottery game Powerball to disguise their letters as official announcing the lottery's winners for 2020. The subject of the spam emails may vary. Still, it is usually something of the kind: "POWERBALL OFFICIAL 2020 WINNINGS (COVID-19) EDITION", while the text of the message says the recipient is among the ones selected in the lottery's draw to win $500,000.
Potential victims are asked to confirm their participation to claim the reward. Furthermore, users are urged to check the email's attachment for additional information and provide the following data – their names, home addresses and phone numbers. Obviously, users who received an email from the 'POWERBALL OFFICIAL 2020 WINNINGS' email scam should ignore the message and not even think of opening any files attached to it.
Infected spam email attachments are among the main distribution channels used by cybercriminals to spread malware threats. Another purpose of such spam campaigns is to collect the user data, which can then be sold to third parties and misused for various harmful activities.
