Online scammers are exploiting the tragic fire that severely damaged the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris Monday, according to a report today from ZeroFOX Inc.

The scammers are targeting both interest in the fire and also nascent efforts to raise money for its rebuilding to trick online users in multiple ways.

In the 24 hours since the fire, researchers at ZeroFOX found multiple different scams that were seeking to exploit the tragedy. These included tricking victims to click on spam links, claimed to be related to the fire, to generate advertising revenue.

In a more obvious attack, some scammers were asking people to donate money to assist with the rebuilding efforts, directing them to fraudulent pages which then not only take funds from victims but sometimes also steal payment details. In some cases, scammers were enticing targets to click on charity-related links that resulted in the victim downloading malware.

The final scam bizarrely involved stock fraud, promising high returns from investing in companies that will be working on rebuilding Notre Dame.

Distribution of the scams was even more diverse than the variety of scams themselves with distribution including social media: impersonating websites and social media accounts, fraudulent emails, fake domain names and fraud messaging.

“Preying on the sympathy of those wanting to help victims is nothing new, but the technical underpinnings of the internet and its social media platforms allow hackers and spammers to scale their efforts at an unprecedented rate,” the researchers noted.

Online users are advised to be cautious of unfamiliar individuals or organizations soliciting donations or investments through social media, email or phone. They also should conduct research on any group they are considering making a donation to. Finally, they should report any scams they find to the platform provider.

Photo: Remi Mathis/Wikimedia Commons