Solutionary Cautions Internet-Users in USA about Atmos Energy Related Spam Mails

Experts at Solutionary the security company, during January 2014 starting, cautioned United States' Internet-users for being watchful of fake e-mails in circulation purporting to be from the country's natural gas supplier Atmos Energy that cyber crooks actually dispatched for disseminating their malicious software. Solutionary's security researchers delineate a few fascinating particulars about the malevolent attack.

Apparently, cyber-crooks have been spamming the e-mails through a botnet called Asprox (also known as Kuluoz), as they kept altering the malevolent e-mails' subject.

When the vacation time just began and people were doing plentiful Internet shopping, Asprox dispatched spam messages which posed as communications sent from the DHL, UPS or FedEx delivery firms.

After sometime, e-mails themed around the popular retailers Walmart and Costco were sent out via the botnet.

At present, given the breakout news about Polar Vortex, spammers felt dispatching e-mails using an energy firm's name too would yield them fruitful results. It may be noted that Polar Vortex, which's name of one large-scale cyclone, persistently hits either the Arctic or Antarctic or both of the earth's geographies.

A research Analyst named Jeremy Scott attached to Solutionary posted on the company blog that as the cold weather in US measured far less than zero-degree Celsius, it was very unlikely that anybody would overlook a message by an energy company at the moment. However, it was important to peruse any e-mail that suggested following a web-link, since such web-links in general led onto a hijacked site which actually served the Asprox malware, Scott added. Solutionary.com reported this in news on January 7, 2014.

Notably, Asprox's malicious software is taken down online in the form of a .zip archive having an executable within. This executable is labeled AtmosBill_Omaha.exe suggesting the spam subject, along with the city name, which's the source of the download.

Spam schemes, in particular, aim at tricking the maximum possible number of users into clicking the junk electronic mail as well as following its web-link. Therefore, in case anybody gets the above kind of e-mail he should neither follow its web-links nor view its attachments instead just delete the message, Solutionary advises.

» SPAMfighter News - 1/24/2014