State Police have discovered a new scam on social media and email, here's how to recognize the fake airline tickets for free with Alitalia
The approaching summer vacations are giving new energy to cyber criminals, who try to deceive internet users with the usual scam of fake airline tickets for free. After RyanAir it is Alitalia's turn: the former national airline is being exploited for a particularly dangerous phishing campaign.
The scheme of scams like this one of fake Alitalia free tickets is always the same. The victim is tricked into clicking on a post or link in the hope of receiving two free Alitalia tickets. In reality, as the State Police warns on its social profiles, the user is redirected to malicious sites, structured to resemble in every way the original Alitalia. Obviously, people who fall into this trap will not receive any free ticket, they will have "given" their personal data to cyber criminals of all kinds, who can then use them to accomplish their own purposes.
How to defend yourself from the scams of free flights
The alarm about this new scam, as mentioned, was launched by the State Police through its Facebook page Commissariato di PS Online - Italy. To tell the truth, this is not the first time that hackers pretend to be Alitalia to give away fake tickets in exchange for user data, already in the past cyber criminals had used this technique. While more recently on WhatsApp the scam related to fake RyanAir free tickets had spread.
Defending yourself from this kind of scams, fortunately, is not complicated. First, remember not to click lightly on sponsored social media posts or incoming email links. Secondly, always avoid entering your personal data (such as date of birth, name, surname and home address) on insecure sites: the risk of identity theft is very high. Finally, if we are interested in Alitalia offers, or any other airline, we should not trust incoming messages via email or on social networks: we check directly on the official portal of the various companies and view the active promotions for summer 2018.