Writes Senior Software Engineer Nick Johnston for the MessageLabs Intelligence Team of Symantec, his organization has so far identified twin 419-patterned e-mail scams. One of them asserts that in a lottery linked to the forthcoming Brazil-hosted 2014 World Cup, the e-mail recipient is the winner of the lucky draw, he explains. V3.co.uk published this on February 3, 2011.

Johnston further explains that the other e-mail scam relates to the 2022 World Cup as it provides a PDF attachment named "2011 e-mail award online documentation 1," which on viewing displays a photograph apparently of Sep Blatter President of FIFA having on his side Sheikh Hamed bin Khalifa bin Ahmed al-Thani, President of Qatar Football Association.

Moreover, the attached document carries the formal logo of the tournament along with a statement declaring the alleged 1.5m pound prize money for the recipient.

Security specialists have cautioned everyone about the scams while advising towards ignoring any message of the same kind landing into people's inboxes.

Johnston states that similar to several 419 scams also called advance-fee scams, the current e-mails prompt recipients for replying back to the scammers for making the claim, alternatively for telephoning to a given phone-number that actually make the connection with some foreign number of the scammer. Techwatch.co.uk published this on February 4, 2011.

Johnston adds that albeit the above e-mails similar to most 419 scams are dispatched through small quantities, still there are several versions while that increases the annoyance.

Worryingly, such scams are likely to keep increasing as the sport event comes closer and closer. Indeed, according to the researchers, as cyber-criminals become active, they'll possibly launch malware assaults while exploiting public enthusiasm for the game.

Furthermore, scammers have earlier too abused similar kinds of global events. Scam attacks associated with the European Soccer Championships of 2008, the FIFA World Cup of 2010, the Vancouver Winter Olympics of 2010, and the approaching London Olympics of 2012 are some other examples of cyber-criminals' exploitation.