Malicious Christmas Shopping Scams Target Internauts via Amazon.com

HELP NET SECURITY reported on 4th December, 2013 stating that security experts have identified new malicious spam email campaigns which are particularly designed to target customers doing online Christmas shopping via Amazon.

Notably, Amazon.com is an American multinational e-commerce company with it's headquarters at Washington, United States.

Researchers of MX Lab intercepted the first spam entitled "order ID801-7322179-4122684" or "Order details" and it (spam email) tells the recipient that Amazon thanks him for his order. The customer is told that he will be informed when his item(s) are shipped by the company. He can view the status of his order or make modifications in it by visiting Your Orders on Amazon's website.

Besides, bogus details of order, the emails also tell the recipient that order details and bills are in the attachment. If he wants to make modifications in his order he can visit Amazon's Help page for additional details and video guides.

As per MX Lab researchers, the emails have an attached file that conceals an edition of the 'Wauchos Trojan'.

Fred Touchette, a Security Researcher of security firm 'AppRiver' identified the second spam email campaign taking advantage of Amazon.com's recent promotion of their 30-day free trial to its 'Amazon Prime services'. This particular service in addition to other benefits allows shoppers of Amazon to get complimentary two days delivery on all their purchases.

Free-shipping with the shopping season on seems to be like a dream turning true for people who like the alternative to do shopping from the ease of their bedrooms rather than the chaos of the neighboring shopping arcades.

The emails disguised as notifications order from Amazon contain 'malware' which takes a record of all processes running on the tainted machine and embezzles all autocomplete passwords from Firefox.

Metro.co.uk published a statement on 4th December, 2013 quoting Touchette as saying "Fake invoice scams are year-round but they are so much more effective during that time of the year that almost everyone is expecting packages from their online purchases. Be cautious of such endeavors to take benefits of the season as they are out in complete force".

» SPAMfighter News - 12/13/2013