The names and reputations of airline companies are preferred by cyber crooks

Nov 26, 2011 11:32 GMT  ·  By

An email bearing the subject “Order has been completed,” just landed in my inbox, alerting me that my credit card was used to purchase an airplane ticket worth $283 (198 EUR) from American Airlines.

“Please find your ticket attached. To use your ticket you should print it. Thank you for your attention. American Airlines,” reads the body of the hoax.

Just as in all the cases that involve fake ticket purchases, the email comes with an attachment that supposedly represents a ticket but, instead, the victim is served a piece of malware that’s capable of many things, from stealing bank accounts to installing scareware.

I advise users to treat these messages with maximum suspicion, even if they make bogus claims about illegal transfers that were made using the recipient’s credit card.

This spam campaign is not exactly new, but I want to profit from this occasion to remind internet users how important an updated antivirus application is, since it immediately detected the attachment as being malware, saving me from ending up with an infected device.