According to research, scammers are stepping up phishing targeting people using dating websites.
Members of Match.com, eHarmony, Zoosk, Christian Mingle and many others had received emails seeking to steal their login information for those sites, Netcraft said.
The internet monitoring company said the messages had been sent from other websites, which had been hacked to hide the identity of the sender.
The stolen data would be used to contact other users in an attempt to trick them into giving them money.
The phishing against dating sites is unusual for the scammers, who usually prefer to target banks, said Paul Mutton, a security analyst at Netcraft, who investigated the attacks.
The attacks were “massive,” he said, adding that last week Netcraft had seen more than 100 compromised websites targeting Match.com alone.
So far, he said, it is unclear how the compromised websites hosted the malicious code. Websites and servers controlled by individuals, small businesses, construction companies and telecommunications service providers had unknowingly become tools for phishing attacks, he added.
