Scareware Purveyors Resort to Socially-engineered Spam Mails

According to the ThreatSeeker Network of Websense, it has been keeping watch as well as tracing one new spam campaign that's targeting credit card owners telling them that they won't be able to use their cards as the same have been temporarily deactivated. Websense published this on July 28, 2011.

Also, an attachment in the scam e-mail claims that it's a trustworthy statement, and though of an old format, it nonetheless details about the entire development.

Meanwhile, the fake electronic mails that seem similar to e-mails more generally observed within banking Trojan or phishing assaults have been fairly elaborated, while they try to dupe potential victims into viewing the attachment. The attachment that apparently consists of info regarding the reason behind deactivating the card further runs malicious software on the victims' computers, downloading a scareware suit.

Specifically the spam mail informs the reader that officials have blocked his credit card as an amount of $46,303 has been withdrawn from it that's attributed to perhaps an illegal operation. It then states that additional information is available within an attached file, adding that the user must instantly get in touch with his bank.

Furthermore, one same kind of e-mail viewable via text editor reveals a more-or-less unchanged content within the campaign, as also the message's wordings along with the header info relevant to the e-mail sender's ID alternatively associated Internet Protocols too are identical.

Citing the latest e-mail scam, security researcher Amon Sanniez of Websense Security Labs states that readers of the spam mail getting worried that there won't be a payment card at their disposal, or being scared that there has been a leakage of their card details via another data hack in the headlines recently, are likely to become less vigilant and proceed to open the attachment. TheRegister published this on August 2, 2011.

Eventually Sanniez urges Internet-users for exercising additional caution while opening attachments or web-links inside e-mails, especially if they assert they're from the users' bank. Indeed, it'll be safer if users call their credit card company and verify if there really has been a blockage of cards, the researcher advises.

Related article: SecureWorks Identifies Bank and Information Stealing Trojan Coreflood

» SPAMfighter News - 8/12/2011