Virgin Australia Cautions Passengers Regarding Hoax Itinerary E-mails

Virgin Australia reportedly alerts its air passengers to be watchful of e-mails that falsely give travel itinerary but likely carry spyware or virus, published computerworld.co.nz in news on December 15, 2012.

Actually, a Spokeswoman of Virgin Australia said that the airline came to know about a few passengers who had been recipients of an e-mail apparently consisting of details regarding travel itineraries, so reported computerworld.co.nz in news on December 15, 2012.

The Spokeswoman further said that the mentioned e-mails weren't Virgin Australia communications, while the airline urged customers against viewing the messages that asserted about providing travel itineraries, in case there wasn't any travel booking by them for the forthcoming few days.

Additionally according to her, it was easy to recognize the e-mails as spurious since they were sent through some Virgin Blue e-mail id, while the messages contained one PDF.zip attachment having the malware.

The airline advised passengers to get in touch with Virgin Australia on 13 67 89. Its Twitter account sent out a message, of late, stating that the airline knew about a few customers who had got certain false itinerary e-mails having software capable of causing harm, therefore, such e-emails shouldn't be opened.

Earlier during the 2nd-week of December 2012, similar electronic mails were distributed that supposedly were from Qantas and talked about paying fee related to aircraft seat selection.

Worryingly, it's because of the above kinds of malware-laced bulk electronic mail scams which are causing malicious software to increase online, remark security analysts examining the currently going e-mail scam. As a backing to this remark, PandaLabs the security company, which published data within its Q3-2012 i.e. July-September 2012 report, shows how Trojans accounted for 72.58%, viruses accounted for 14.47% along with worms, which accounted for 10.53 %, of the total fresh malicious programs during the quarter.

To conclude, it's not just Virgin as well as Qantas as airlines which cyber-criminals have solely targeted worldwide, during December 2012. For, during the 1st-week of December 2012, spam e-mail outbreaks, which misappropriated Air Canada's name and reputation, were discovered circulating online, claimed security researchers from MX Labs, another security company.

Related article: Verizon Sets Alarm against New phishing E-Mails

» SPAMfighter News - 12/26/2012