Phishing scams will frequently occur as more and more people begin shopping online this holiday season. What you might not know is that Adage is reporting that phishers are starting to use nonfinancial consumer brands such as Coke and McDonalds as bait - giving away sweepstakes, promotions, and other giveaways are luring devices.

The threat of phishers blasting the one-on-one relationships that businesses are trying to build with consumers online is affecting the trustworthiness of online purchases. This soft of scam needs to be addressed by marketers and programmers immediately if something can be done to thwart e-criminals.

“That red Coke logo is a shiny lure to get you to go through the load-in on your inbox, open up and then click through,” said John Roberts, VP-product, OpenDNS, a year-old domain-name-system service platform. “Anything which can take decades of brand promise and put it to use for criminal activity is going to be tried.”

ÂÂ