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"Microsoft Error" Gets People Hacked

Some can't help getting infected with viruses!

By Alexandru Dumitru, Security News Editor

25th of September 2007, 15:01 GMT

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Some of us, the normal users, know what e-mails to dodge and when to be cautious about hackers. But some people can't help it - they're compelled to open certain e-mails, as it's in the nature of their workplace.

And hackers have noticed this, and now they're exploiting it! Anybody that has a high position in a company and receives an e-mail with the firm's name in the subject line cannot ignore it, that's for sure! Most of the times, they're legitimate, but hackers will pose as legitimate users, to send email-borne malware.

Security vendor MessageLabs reported that 1.100 e-mails containing malware infected rich text file attachments have been recorded to be sent to their C-level management, as ZDNet informs us. They have to open these mails, it's their job, they can't ignore them! Now, when they open the e-mails and want to download the file they get a message saying something about a Microsoft error that has occurred and that they need to click on a link to get the file they initially wanted. Of course, as you might have suspected, clicking the link will get them infected with a virus.

This is pretty clever and devious as well - IT managers will not block these messages since they are intended for top executives, regarding something related to their company and if the receiver fails to have protection on his or her machine, then they're in big trouble!

Things could get even worse in case we're talking about a malicious insider and if the e-mail will infect you with a Trojan bot, things will get even more severe. Just think about the potential of this - if you infect an executive's machine, then you pretty much got all the network infected, because the machine belonging to the top-level employee will send messages to the other employees, that are prone to getting infected as well, since the message is from a trusted source.

TAGS:

virus | threat | e-mail | managers | executives

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