Fake E-Mail Hits Online Users in Finland

A fake e-mail is circulating in Finland and some other countries, purporting to come from one of the US airline companies, confirming of a ticket purchase on its Websites and saying that the price has been debited to the credit card account of the recipient.

Also, the fake e-mail has been targeting a number of e-mail accounts. The message said that the ticket has been included in the e-mail as an attachment. However, the attachment actually carries malware so that if viewed the computer becomes infected with a deadly virus.

According to Luottokunta, a Finnish company making credit card payments and it also administers Visa cards and MasterCard used in Finland, the company has not billed the e-mail recipients' payment card accounts; thus, they need not take any further action, as reported by Helsingin Sanomat on August 21, 2008.

Meanwhile, Luottokunta's customer service has received hundreds of telephone calls from people getting the fraudulent e-mail. Petri Carpen, Deputy CEO of Luottokunta, said that it is unlikely that all the customers who might have got the e-mail would call the company, meaning that the message must have been distributed to far many people. Also, the recipients are not in any danger of facing a huge credit card bill, as the e-mail's sender had not been able to get the recipient's payment card information, as reported byHelsingin Sanomat on August 21, 2008.

However, Carpen feels that people are quite skilled as no one complained of facing computer problems due to the message, as reported by YLE-fi on August 18, 2008.

Erkki Mustonen, Data Security Specialist of F-Secure said that the airlines ticket scam emerged in the US during the last week of July 2008. The e-mail messages are identical, but they seem to arrive from several airlines. Also, the messages contain an attachment, which if opened, release malware that begins to capture personal information from the computer user, including Internet banking codes, as reported by Helsingin Sanomat on August 21, 2008.

Hence, users are strongly recommended that anyone receiving the e-mail should ignore the attachment as well as delete the malicious e-mail immediately.

Related article: Fake Spam Mail Announces Australian PM’s Heart Attack

» SPAMfighter News - 8/30/2008