The Latest in IT Security

Scams utilizing Google Music beta

13
May
2011

It is a fact that cybercriminals and other persons who attempt to trick you react quickly when a new product or service enter the market. The latest example shows that these individuals react even before release – in the beta phase.

Google Music is a new offering from Google, released as a beta service a few days ago. It is currently only available in the United States.

Google Music is a service, which in the beta phase allows users to upload as much as 22 000 songs free of charge. Whether the service will be free after release remains to be seen. You will be able to access your uploaded songs from different devices (computer, smartphone, etc.), a feature which is particularly useful if you want to listen to your music from several locations.

Currently Google Music beta is only available by invitation from Google.

And this invitation-only restriction is what the scammers abuse, as reported by Mashable earlier this week. They send fake invitations to participate in the Google Music program.

These types of invitations may of course have links to web pages that may seem similar to the real Google Music site, and will presumably be used either to harvest your personal information and/or to infect your computer with malicious software (e.g. fake antimalware).

You should not click on any links in any form of invitation to participate in using Google Music. This includes invitations that your friends may forward by email, tweet, post on Facebook etc. 

Mashable writes in the abovementioned warning:

Any person or website claiming to be “giving away” Google Music invites is lying, a fact we’ve just confirmed with Google representatives. Because of the way invites are handed out, they’re linked to specific Google Accounts. In other words, one person can’t request an invite and pass it on; the invite has to be requested and accepted by the same Google Account.

Be vigilant to avoid being a victim of a scam for something that isn’t even publicly released as a service!

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