Pizza Hut Pizza: Would You Like Malware On That?


What is better than Pizza Hut pizza? Well, FREE Pizza Hut, of course. That is why, according to the Inquisitr, Pizza Hut was offering free pizza this past September. The one caveat was that you needed to have a fantasy football team to receive the promotional offer.

So when people began to get emails Thursday that had “free pizza” offers from Pizza Hut in them, consumers happily accepted the offer. However, the Federal Trade Commission suggests this might not be the best course of action.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, you should not open that email offering a free Pizza Hut pizza, and the FTC explains why.

“Don’t believe the email offering free pizza from Pizza Hut. It’s a scam”

The email that is currently circulating is said to be offering coupons for a free Pizza Hut pizza for the company’s 55th anniversary. The FTC says “there is no free pizza,” just Malware that will be installed upon your computer right after you click on it.

WTAQ reports that the virus has been circulating for some time and has stated the expiration for the offer was said to be November 5. Despite the fact that the “offer” expired, it’s said that many computers are being infected.

The infection name or information was not given, however, the typical process goes through what is known as “Spam“. Those with the technical know how, either personally send the infection laced spam, or utilize standalone “Command and Control” servers known as “Botnets”. WTAQ also reported that, at this time, a few unspecified email services have marked the malicious email spam.

However, this does not mean the email service you are using has definitively dealt with the infection.

Issues such as spam should always be dealt with logically. Often times, there are tell tale signs something is fake. In the case of this particular scam, the 50th anniversary did happen recently – but that was last year. The email address or other visual aspects should tip you off as well.

As Daily Finance reported, the FTC has listed a few things to help you avoid similar malicious emails.

  • When you hover over the coupon link, it doesn’t show pizzahut.com.
  • If you type in the company’s official site, you won’t see anything about free pizza.
  • Ask yourself if you signed up to get email discounts from this company. If not, it’s unlikely they’d send you a real discount out of the blue.

So, though Pizza Hut does occasionally give away free pizzas, it is best to stick to official releases you have seen on TV or other media outlets.

[Image Via Techno Buffalo]

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