Fighting malware and spam

Contract spam serving malware

Recipients made to believe they have been sent emails accidentally.

In a new campaign, spammers are sending out emails that have appear to have contracts attached to them, but which actually serve malware, Sophos's Graham Cluley reports.

The emails, which are still being sent at the time of writing, have subject lines suggesting that they contain information about a contract or a newly opened bank account. The wording of the message then gives the impression that the recipient has received the email by accident, but many will be tempted through curiosity to open the attachment anyway. Doing so, however, will cause their computer to be infected with a piece of malware, possibly the infamous Koobface worm.

The emails appear to have been sent through botnets, and a lot of them will be blocked by a good spam filter. However, there will always be emails that slip through; a combination of end-user awareness and a good anti-virus program is needed to stop those emails from causing harm.

More details at Graham Cluley's blog here.

05 May 2010

Tags: koobface, spam, worm.    del.icio.us   digg this

0 comments

Leave a comment

Quick Links

Poll

virusbtn: RT @emailsecmatters: The typical spam message has sources as diverse as the spam lunch meat: http://ht.ly/2yucd
1 hour ago

virusbtn: Can anyone write a rap about our RAP tests (http://bit.ly/255ySQ) and submit it to the Symantec competition http://bit.ly/bOJg8r
4 hours ago

Virus Bulletin

• VB100 – Windows Vista Business Edition Service Pack 2
• Apple pie order?
• Anti-unpacker tricks – part eleven
• Advanced exploit framework lab set-up
• HTML structure-based proactive phishing detection
• What’s the deal with sender authentication? Part 3