David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Fake swine flu e-mails lead to computer virus
By Elinor Mills, CNET News
Dec 01, 2009
You can ignore that e-mail that looks like it comes from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control about creating a profile for an H1N1 vaccination program. It's a malware scam, according to security provider AppRiver.
The fake alert informs recipients that as part of a "State Vaccination H1N1 Program" they need to create a profile on the CDC Web site. The link in the e-mail goes to a fake CDC page where the visitor is assigned a temporary ID and a link to a vaccination profile that is actually an an executable file containing a copy of the Kryptik Trojan targeting Windows, according to an AppRiver blog post on Tuesday.
Once installed, "this Trojan will create a security-free gateway on your system and will proceed to download and install additional malware without your authorization," the post warns. "It also enables a remote hacker to take complete control of your computer. This malware can log your typed keystrokes and send confidential personal and financial data (including banking information, credit card numbers, and website passwords) to a remote hacker."
For more, read Fake CDC vaccine e-mail leads to malware at CNET News.
By Elinor Mills, CNET News
Dec 01, 2009
You can ignore that e-mail that looks like it comes from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control about creating a profile for an H1N1 vaccination program. It's a malware scam, according to security provider AppRiver.
The fake alert informs recipients that as part of a "State Vaccination H1N1 Program" they need to create a profile on the CDC Web site. The link in the e-mail goes to a fake CDC page where the visitor is assigned a temporary ID and a link to a vaccination profile that is actually an an executable file containing a copy of the Kryptik Trojan targeting Windows, according to an AppRiver blog post on Tuesday.
Once installed, "this Trojan will create a security-free gateway on your system and will proceed to download and install additional malware without your authorization," the post warns. "It also enables a remote hacker to take complete control of your computer. This malware can log your typed keystrokes and send confidential personal and financial data (including banking information, credit card numbers, and website passwords) to a remote hacker."
For more, read Fake CDC vaccine e-mail leads to malware at CNET News.
