“Buy Your Dad a Cigar” Spam Redirects Users to Gambling Websites

You might think that the email you just got is a godsend because you forgot to get your dad a present last Sunday, which happened to be Father's Day. You know, the email that's advertising a Father's Day special on premium cigars at $19.95 instead of their original retail price of $138.

It sounds like a deal that's too good to be true, doesn't it? And rightly so, because it's actually spam i in the guise of a fake (but appealing) offer that's trying to lure in forgetful sons and daughter to click on links that will eventually lead to gambling sites.

These spam emails were first discovered by Sophos Lab security researchers, which bore subjects such as "Buy Your Dad a Cigar" or "Father's Day Special on Premium Cigars." The emails are from Philip@givefather.com and contain a short message advertising the deal, followed by images of the Victor Sinclair cigars.

Presumably the spammers are hoping to earn affiliate commission by driving traffic to the websites, and hope that the thought of buying a cigar at the last-minute for Father's Day will be enough to get folks to click.

-- Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos

Once the image or links in the email are clicked, users are then redirected to gambling sites where pop-ups are a dime a dozen. Fortunately there's no malware involved, although spam campaigns like these are still grossly misleading, not to mention extremely annoying.

If you get emails like these in your inbox, just hit "delete" or mark it as spam, and move on.