World Cup 2010 competition scam warning

If you receive an email telling you have won a competition to see matches at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa you should ignore it.

Security experts have warned of a phishing scam in which tickets to the tournament are being used as bait.

To add plausibility to the scam, the email tells you that the tickets are being given away as part of South African Airway's 75th birthday celebrations.

Like many phishing scams, the email is littered with grammatical errors.

"South African Airways (SAA) is the largest and most important African airline and has received numerous 'Best African Airline' awards from different leading magazines," part of the email reads.

How to avoid phishing scams

Researchers at McAfee spotted the emails in circulation and warned that though this variant was crude, further scams were likely to be much more sophisticated.

"With the first part of the text stolen from a UK-based riding holiday website and then adding the usual 'Hey, you just won a really cool prize, just send me all you personal information' spin, this scam is certainly not the most sophisticated we will be seeing I’m afraid, but to my knowledge the first," said Toralv Dirro of McAfee.

However, it isn't the first 2010 World Cup scam to have been spotted - back in January 2009, Trend Micro intercepted emails about an online sweepstake in which the recipient had won a prize.