E-mail Containing Malware Target Telstra Customers

According to security researchers, a malicious e-mail asserting as message from Telstra the telecom major in Australia lures recipients in such a way that they may view a given attachment actually containing malware, thus reported softpedia.com dated January 28, 2015.

Any person without even subscribing to Telstra's business broadband may possibly become tempted towards glancing at the attached file that's really one Program Information File (PIF) in the guise of a PDF file.

The PIF is a kind of data traditionally related to malware, however, currently it isn't utilized often; possibly it's making a comeback.

Malware-laced e-mail scams employ easy to believe social engineering tactics for making recipients panicky so they would view a given attachment that plants malicious software. In the current case, e-mail recipients mistakenly believe that there's about to occur a cancellation of their broadband subscription, so they hurriedly click on the attachment.

Recipients trust the e-mail and imagine its attachment carries an innocuous .pdf file. The filenames given have double extensions and so both .pif and .zip filenames are doubly extended with 'pdf.'

Normally, when file extensions remain concealed like they're automatically on Windows PCs, filenames get displayed as PDFs like in 'PDF_copy_of_your_order_form.pdf' that is likely to dupe certain recipients into following the instructions carelessly.

It's therefore advisable that computers be configured for displaying file extensions.

In case someone gets the above kind of e-mail, he's suggested not to click the web-links or view the attachments it may have.

Disturbingly, the aforementioned kind of phishing e-mail scams has been unceasingly occurring, remark security analysts.

Besides, it's vital for noting that quite same kind of malware campaigns can occur masquerading as more service providers from various regions of the globe, experts emphasize.

Eventually, it needs mention that during October 2014 also Telstra was targeted with a malevolent phishing scam asking for billing information update from Telstra customers ever-since the 4G's next generation facilities was introduced on 700MHz spectrum, and adding that there was one fresh iPhone 6 Plus as gift to the first hundred consumers who would perform the update via a web-link given inside the e-mail.

» SPAMfighter News - 2/9/2015