Phishing Scam Exploiting Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s Name

Multiple World Bank officials were recently cautioned to beware of a virus infected e-mail pretending to come from a suspicious source using name of Treasury Secretary to circulate virus, as reported by Wall Street Journal on November 4, 2010.

The virus was found in an attachment sent to various World Bank officials in what posed to be an e-mail from Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs, Lael Brainard. The e-mail body also includes a short message. The e-mail urges readers to find and read the enclosed letter by Secretary Geithner. The e-mail also stated that, they were thinking regarding their positions, as reported by Dealbreake on November 4, 2010.

According to the senior World Bank officials, virus enclosed in the attachment is very dangerous. Furthermore, the officials have found that the phishing scam was targeted to penetrate World Bank computers through a malicious file.

Hence, experts warned World Bank officials not to open any attachment or link in an e-mail that includes a short message containing spelling or grammatical errors or seems suspicious in any way.

Commenting on the whole matter, World Bank officials stated that, they were aware that 'phishing' attempts were becoming more complex, and they worked hard to safeguard their security. The Bank has not had any violations of its system based on the latest phishing attacks, as reported by Wall Street Journal on November 4, 2010.

Meanwhile, this is not the first incidence, when cyber criminals used these kinds of tricks to circulate malware. Hence, all netizens including organization official have been recommended to be wary while opening e-mail attachments and not to download any kind of attachments received from an unknown source. They have also been suggested not to open attachments even from recognizable sources unless and until users are expecting e-mails from them.

Besides, users can configure their e-mail server to block or delete e-mail that contains file attachments that are generally used to circulate threats, like, .vbs, .bat, .exe, .pif, and .scr files.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 11/22/2010