Apple spammers hedge bets

There's a good chance you didn't win a $200 Apple Store Gift Card, but if you clicked the link or attachment in the 'winner' email, you probably will claim a nasty piece of malware.

The message crafted to look like a legitimate email from Apple urged readers to click a link or download attachment to obtain an "Apple Store Gift Card code".

Victims that follow the dubious instructions will instead download Windows malware.

“What's particularly interesting about this campaign is that the cyber criminal(s) behind it are mixing the infection vectors by relying on both a malicious attachment and a link to the same malware found in the malicious emails," Webroot researcher Dancho Danchev said in a post.

"Users can become infected by either executing the attachment or by clicking on the client-side exploits serving link found in the emails.”

Email phishing, spamming and scamming has been around for years, but lately attackers have become increasingly creative with their campaigns.