{"id":18185,"date":"2022-02-03T08:10:18","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T16:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2022\/02\/03\/news-11918\/"},"modified":"2022-02-03T08:10:18","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T16:10:18","slug":"news-11918","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2022\/02\/03\/news-11918\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware bogus OperaGX sponsorship offers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2022 15:36:45 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re a YouTuber, watch out for bogus Opera missives winging their way to you.<\/p>\n<p>The Browser team has had to <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.opera.com\/desktop\/2022\/02\/warning-scammers-pretending-to-work-for-opera-gx-fake-manager-of-opera-software-partnership-proposal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">send out a warning<\/a> in relation to scammy antics trading on their good name. At a time when people are stretched for cash, nothing could be better than a promo mail bearing good news landing in their mailboxes. Unfortunately, it\u2019s not quite what it seems.<\/p>\n<h3>What\u2019s happened?<\/h3>\n<p>A number of YouTube content creators have received mail which reads like this:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Hello, I am the manager of OperaSoftware.<\/p>\n<p>Our company has paid attention to your channel and decided to make an offer. Our OperaGX browser lacks popularity, so we offer you to cooperate with us.<\/p>\n<p>If you agree to cooperate with our company, please let us know and we will send you our terms.<\/p>\n<p>Best regards, Manager of OperaSoftware<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The mail, as confirmed by Opera, is bogus and should not be trusted.<\/p>\n<h3>OperaGX? What\u2019s that?<\/h3>\n<p>OperaGX is a browser from Opera <a href=\"https:\/\/uk.pcmag.com\/browsers\/130049\/opera-gx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">geared towards gamers<\/a>. It comes complete with a bunch of features gamers and streamers may well <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opera.com\/gx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">make use of<\/a>. I\u2019ve no idea how popular it is, but I suspect it\u2019s a <em>bit<\/em> more popular than the developers needing to beg YouTubers for promotion deals.<\/p>\n<h3>Is there a risk from this fake mail?<\/h3>\n<p>There absolutely is, most likely of the financial kind. Opera don\u2019t dwell on the details too much, but do say the following:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>From what we have observed, this particular scam is aimed at smaller YouTube creators in an attempt to get their personal information and subsequently get some form of payment from them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>You may think streamers <em>shouldn\u2019t<\/em> fall for this, but that\u2019s probably not very fair. The scammers likely target those without sponsorship or product placement deals. This is because they won\u2019t know precisely how legitimate deals take place. The savvy streamer with half a million viewers and branded energy drink t-shirts up for sale? Those aren\u2019t the hot targets.<\/p>\n<p>Someone new to the scene with no deals and small view counts? It\u2019s fake email deployment time. The scammers know the streamer won\u2019t say no to more money. They also know there\u2019s a good chance that stroking their ego (\u201cHi, we\u2019re one of the biggest browsers around and we need your help\u201d) will get the job done.<\/p>\n<h3>What\u2019s the process for spotting a fake?<\/h3>\n<p>As far as this scam specifically goes, there\u2019s a few ways to avoid the fake offer\u2019s sting. Certain agencies perform outreach to streamers on Opera\u2019s behalf. They will \u201cidentify themselves as such\u201d, and they encourage recipients of such messages to check the email of the sender and verify on Linkedin. They also provide an email address to contact should people still be uncertain about messages they\u2019ve received.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s several examples of bogus sponsorship mails on sites such as Reddit. Here\u2019s one which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/operabrowser\/comments\/s4ppjh\/phishing_sponsorship_email\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">tries its best<\/a> to disguise the fake email address, while offering up a suspicious download. Here\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/operabrowser\/comments\/pwj9cc\/question_about_sponsorship\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">one from 4 months ago<\/a> asking the recipient to download a \u201ctimetable of sponsorship prices\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>No matter which variation of mail you receive, go straight to the official source. Check with Opera directly, and keep one finger hovering over the delete button. You may very well need it.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/social-engineering\/2022\/02\/beware-bogus-operagx-sponsorship-offers\/\">Beware bogus OperaGX sponsorship offers<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\">Malwarebytes Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/social-engineering\/2022\/02\/beware-bogus-operagx-sponsorship-offers\/\" target=\"bwo\" >https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/feed\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2022 15:36:45 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<table cellpadding='10'>\n<tr>\n<td valign='top' align='center'><a href='https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/social-engineering\/2022\/02\/beware-bogus-operagx-sponsorship-offers\/' title='Beware bogus OperaGX sponsorship offers'><img src='https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/photodune-8243786-internet-browser-s.jpg' border='0'  width='300px'  \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign='top' align='left'>We look at a scam targeting YouTubers, via an entirely fictitious sponsorship and promotional deal for OperaGX<\/p>\n<p>Categories: <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/category\/social-engineering\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Social engineering<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Tags: <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/opera\/\" rel=\"tag\">opera<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/operagx\/\" rel=\"tag\">operagx<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/phish\/\" rel=\"tag\">phish<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/phishing\/\" rel=\"tag\">phishing<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/scam\/\" rel=\"tag\">scam<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/youtube\/\" rel=\"tag\">youtube<\/a><\/p>\n<table width='100%'>\n<tr>\n<td align=right>\n<p><b>(<a href='https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/social-engineering\/2022\/02\/beware-bogus-operagx-sponsorship-offers\/' title='Beware bogus OperaGX sponsorship offers'>Read more&#8230;<\/a>)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/social-engineering\/2022\/02\/beware-bogus-operagx-sponsorship-offers\/\">Beware bogus OperaGX sponsorship offers<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\">Malwarebytes Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[10488,10378],"tags":[19013,24805,10511,3924,3985,10510,2593],"class_list":["post-18185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malwarebytes","category-security","tag-opera","tag-operagx","tag-phish","tag-phishing","tag-scam","tag-social-engineering","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}