[ news_security_news ]
FBI Victim Of Email Fraud
John Stith
Staff Writer
2005-11-22
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
An official looking malicious email is making its rounds on the electronic superhighway. The letter, stating the FBI sent it, said the recipient was surfing illegal websites and the user needs to open an attachment to solve the problem The FBI sent no such letter.
The FBI issued a warning from their website, telling users to be careful. They say this email has nothing to do with them. The attachment actually has the w32/sober virus in it. If the program within the zip attachment is executed, your computer becomes infected.
The email addresses look official too, using addresses like mail@fbi.gov, post@fbi.gov or admin@fbi.gov. This official looking names are particularly effective.
The email looks like this:
Dear Sir/Madam,
We have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites.
Important: Please answer our questions! The list of questions are attached.
Yours faithfully,
Steven Allison
Federal Bureau of Investigation-FBI-
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 3220
Washington, DC 20535
Phone: (202) 324-3000
The Bureau is none to happy about this one and they are investigating. They state in the notice that the FBI doesn't send unsolicited emails and it's good practice not to open attachments, particularly from unknown senders.
The FBI said if anyone has a problem, report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
More news_security_news Articles
Insider Reports RSS Feed
|
|
iEntry 10th Anniversary
RSS
Archive
