Application security

“Canadian Pharmacy” spam claiming to be from Vimeo flooding inboxes

The Twitterverse on Friday is active with reports of users saying they are being hit by spam claiming to come from video-sharing site Vimeo.

The unsolicited emails, which SCMagazine.com reviewed, are arriving "signed" with a number of different names, but all the senders are sourced as journalists.

The message asks for permission to publish "your video" on the sender's "news portal." Recipients are then prompted to click on a cleverly disguised URL that appears to be an actual Vimeo hyperlink, but in fact leads to "Canadian Pharmacy" spam offering erection enhancement pills. 

A Vimeo spokesman told SCMagazine.com on Friday that the offenders appear to be based outside of the United States, and there has been no breach of the company's systems.

"We became aware of phishing attempts earlier today," a Vimeo spokesman told SCMagazine.com in an email. "Third parties have copied Vimeo's email template and have been using that template to send phishing emails to many persons including persons who do not have Vimeo accounts. We have informed users that this is happening and have instructed them not to respond to the emails. We are also reaching out to email providers whose domains appear to be targeted to block these emails."

Recipients of the junk email are also referred to the site's support page.

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