Complex attack targets Better Business Bureau

Sophisticated scam uses personalised mails, real site redirects.

A highly sophisticated email phishing scam is using a redirection flaw in the website of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) to lead victims to install spyware. The emails making contact with potential victims are highly targeted, with personalised information and links to the genuine BBB site to minimise suspicion.

The mails, sent from compromised systems, use spoofed BBB source addresses and include a highly convincing complaint form, detailing a complaint supposedly filed against the recipient's business. Details of the recipient including names, email addresses and business information are included, and follow-up links point to the BBB site.

Following the links, however, leads to a cleverly crafted redirect exploiting a flaw in the BBB search system, to take victims to a string of external sites, spoofed to resemble BBB styling, which push users to install an ActiveX control. Instead, of course, spyware is installed, which during early investigation yesterday had very limited detection from anti-malware products.

The BBB, a perennial target of phishing and spam, was apparently informed of the scam using its search service for redirects in mid-December, but has yet to address the issue. Full details of the complex attack, including screenshots, are on John Graham-Cumming's anti-spam blog, here.

07 February 2008

Tags: better business bureau, phishing, social engineering, spam, spyware. del.icio.us digg this