Mom, I Bought You a Public Toilet Survival Kit for Mother's Day

“Hello mom. I know I haven’t called you in a while, but here I was, at the office, and got an e-mail with a major discount for Mother’s Day. When can I stop by to drop off the public toilet survival kit I got for you?”

If you find yourself having this implausible conversation with your mom, check your inbox – you-re probably infected with the latest Mother’s day spam.

Scammers mostly pull out the same old tricks, boring our beloved Bitdefender Labs experts to tears. But some days are full of surprises. The most recent one is a spam campaign that starts with sensitive Mother’s Day messages, ups the offer to cheap flowers “¦ and then appeals to any man’s heart.

Instead of low price on roses and tulips, men end up on a web site offering great gifts for”¦ men. Gadgets, living, style, rides, body and entertainment presents are just a few of the “exciting” stuff users can get for their mothers on May 12^th.

The scammers” mechanisms are pretty simple:

Stage 1: Tell men they should buy flowers for their moms.

Stage 2: Tell the men that they are even more important and get them to buy gifts for themselves.

Stage 3: Take their credit card details and empty their accounts. They will spend valuable time with their mothers asking them for money.

The gift that surprised us out of scam monotony was the public toilet survival kit you can buy for just $6.00. Obviously, every mother wants “confidence to step out into the wild!”

The product description may be a bit too technical for our software developers, but we understand the kit has everything you need – “from a toilet seat cover to a set of two antiseptic wipes to a pair of latex-free disposable gloves.”

While manly men, and their moms, might use this gift for a wipe in an inconvenient place, scammers will use it to conveniently wipe out their bank accounts. The website is part of a phishing attack. Antivirus software such as Bitdefender’s blocks it, with a warning.

Mother’s Day is celebrated in the US on the second Sunday of May. In some countries, the holiday was changed to match historical dates or religious events. In scam-land, though, it’s apparently a month-long crazy love-fest for mothers and sons all over the globe. Caring sons and husbands can also buy football cleats, Aston Martins and smoking pipes for their lovely mothers.

All product and company names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and are the property of, and may be trademarks of, their respective owners.

This article is based on the technical information provided courtesy of Daniel Ichim, Bitdefender Spam Researcher