Sesame Street scareware scam

Cybercriminals have taken advantage of Sesame Street's 40th birthday celebrations to spread rogueware.

Rogueware scams, sometimes called scareware or Fake AV scams, involve tricking a surfer into visiting an infected website where they are presented with messages telling them there is an infection on their PC.

The messages then offer to clean the supposed infection for a fee.

The Sesame Street scam has seen cybercriminals use search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques to infect search results for the term 'Big Bird's birthday'.

"The first link we saw appeared as the seventh search result on the first page of Google results. Many more appeared lower down. The text beneath the malicious result link read, in part, "Make your child's big day extra special with a personalized birthday banner!'" said Andrew Brandt of security firm Webroot.

"Hooking your scumbag wares to celebrity deaths, peephole videos, and high-profile arrests is one thing. But as far as I'm concerned, a line has been crossed. Yes, the dark back-alleys of the internet are pretty far afield from Sesame Street. But nobody messes with the Bird," Brandt continued.

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