Amazon Spam Mails Spread Trojan

According to the news reported by Abc15 on July 2, 2010, hackers are distributing fake Amazon e-mails to users' mailboxes to exploit the company's trustworthy name for disseminating Trojan.

Although it seems that the e-mails are confirming an order from Amazon, there is a malicious Trojan hidden inside that targets end-users' PCs.

The e-mail's subject line reads "Your Amazon.com order." Thereafter, the text message offers thanks for placing an order, and also presents one web-link that the recipient is suggested to examine for making any correction in the order.

There is even the Amazon logo in the e-mail and the full cost of the pending purchase. As the recipient did not order, it is likely to raise suspicion. However, for those who did place an order with Amazon, an incorrect price is sure to make them follow the web-link for finding out the reason why too high or too low a price is charged.

Further, the spam mails pretend to be pretty genuine and capable of tricking the recipients into clicking on the embedded web-links. These links are malicious because if clicked, a Java style Trojan gets downloaded on the end-users' computers.

Commenting on the problem, the security researchers again tell that authentic Amazon related e-mails will always address the recipient personally using his/her Amazonian username rather than just his/her e-mail address like in the case of the ongoing junk e-mail. As different from an authentic order confirmation, the current junk e-mail doesn't mention the billing address of any user.

There is a mathematical equation in the spam message, which makes it very hard to determine the bill's computation. The conmen, in addition to making many math errors, even demonstrate carelessness via not mentioning the same sum all through the e-mail.

Possibly, the biggest hint that the e-mail is phony is that all the embedded web-links take the user to Booksalon.kr.

According to the security researchers, since it is not possible to distinguish the phony e-mail from the real one just by looking, the recipient can get ensnared with the scammers' ploy and have his PC infected.

Related article: Amazon’s Customers Latest Target for Phishers

» SPAMfighter News - 7/13/2010