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US-CERT: Beware of airline ticket e-mail scam
by Ryan Naraine, ZDNet
December 12th, 2008
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has issued an alert for an e-mail scam targeting holiday travelers, warning that malware authors are using clever social engineering tactics to hijack Windows computers.
In the e-mail scam, users get a .zip file attached to a message about an airline ticket and an ominous mention of a credit card balance. It appears to come from legitimate major airlines including Delta, JetBlue, Continental, American Airlines and Virgin America.
The use of social engineering lures alongside news events and holidays is tried-and-true so it?s no surprise to see this type of scam circulating at holiday time. However, the use of a fake ?credit card balance? is somewhat unique, meant to scare unwary users into opening the rigged attachment.
US-CERT encourages users to do the following to help mitigate the risks:
by Ryan Naraine, ZDNet
December 12th, 2008
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has issued an alert for an e-mail scam targeting holiday travelers, warning that malware authors are using clever social engineering tactics to hijack Windows computers.
In the e-mail scam, users get a .zip file attached to a message about an airline ticket and an ominous mention of a credit card balance. It appears to come from legitimate major airlines including Delta, JetBlue, Continental, American Airlines and Virgin America.
This .zip attachment appears to contain a purchase invoice and flight ticket. If a user opens this attachment, malicious code may be installed on the system.
The malware associated with this spam run is a Trojan downloader that?s typically used to drop other malicious programs on an infected machine. It was previously used in e-mail scams related to fake UPS invoices.The use of social engineering lures alongside news events and holidays is tried-and-true so it?s no surprise to see this type of scam circulating at holiday time. However, the use of a fake ?credit card balance? is somewhat unique, meant to scare unwary users into opening the rigged attachment.
US-CERT encourages users to do the following to help mitigate the risks:
- Install anti-malware software and keep the signatures up to date.
- Use extreme caution when opening attachments, even those that arrive from trust sources (these can be spoofed).
- Refer to the Recognizing and Avoiding Email Scams (.pdf)
document for more information on avoiding email scams. - Refer to the Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing Attacks document for more information on social engineering attacks.
