Brand Deals, Sponsorship & Business
Sponsorship scam
Also called: fake brand deal, brand deal phishing, malware sponsorship email
The message looks right: a real product, a plausible fee, a named contact and a media pack to download. The attachment or link carries malware written to lift browser session cookies, which lets an attacker sign in as you without ever needing the password, and channels have been taken over and renamed inside a few hours. Other versions ask for an upfront payment or send a cheque that later bounces.
The defences are dull and they work. Never open an attachment from an unsolicited sponsor, check the sending domain against the brand's real website, open anything you must inspect in a virtual machine, and keep two-step verification on every account with channel access.