Scammers Exploiting Ebola Epidemic in Phishing Campaigns - Symantec

According to security firm Symantec, cyber crooks are now using new and innovative methods to compromise PCs as people have started to become more aware of common cyber attacks. One of the latest evolutions of attacks is infecting PCs with phishing emails consisting latest news around like Ebola virus epidemic which hit the news worldwide.

Ebola is a viral disease and its symptoms include extreme weakness, sudden fever, sore throat and muscle pain. Diarrhea, vomiting and sometimes external and internal bleeding happen at later stages.

Researchers of Symantec caught a phishing email campaign which impersonates a communication from CNN (Cable News Network), a known US-based cable and satellite TV channel, giving news about Ebola virus luring potential victim to click on a link to gain more details which had been undisclosed.

The experts have analyzed the email delivering the malicious link and found that the online crooks are after the log-in details for major webmail providers.

Softpedia.com reported on 18th August, 2014 quoting a write-up of experts as "if the user clicks on the links in the email, they are directed to a Web page , asked to select an email provider and asked to put their login credentials. If users do this, their credentials will be sent to phishers and they are redirected to the genuine home page of CNN."

Financialexpress.com published news on 19th August, 2014 quoting Symantec as saying "Symantec advises all users to be careful of unexpected, unsolicited or suspicious emails. If you are not sure about the authenticity of the email then never respond to it and never click on the links and open any attachments which come with such emails."

Moreover, it is not the first time that we have seen attackers using leading news as bait to exploit PCs. Recently, cyber criminals have used news about Luis Suarez, Uruguayan professional footballer, biting incident during 2014 World Cup, the mysterious vanishing of the unfortunate MH370 Malaysian Airlines with 239 passengers on board going to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur in March 2014 and a fake online campaign targeting Arvind Kejriwal as bait to lure people into opening malicious emails.

» SPAMfighter News - 8/26/2014