Worldwide Epidemics Scare Users into Opening Malicious Sites

Cybercrooks will rely on any news that may present interest to spread their malicious campaigns, but sometimes they really become original and make stuff up themselves. This is the case in the latest spam campaign where spammers are warning Internet users on epidemics breaking out in the recipient’s country.

Since a few years ago there really were some incidents, such as the swine flu outbreak, that alarmed individuals worldwide, now hackers are hoping that the same kinds of stories will once again make people open their malicious websites without giving them a second thought.

The United States, Sweden, Portugal, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Algeria and even US states such as Alaska or Washington are allegedly falling victim to fast spreading epidemics, reports Symantec.

Baring the subject “Epidemics in [location]”, the malevolent emails alert users on the fact that the government is hiding a new outbreak.

“The government is hiding this fact, but there is a new epidemic in [location]. I got to know it from friends of mine, they are there right now. Here you can find instructions on how not to get infected,” reads the phony alert.

Instead of instructions on how to protect themselves, the victims are redirected to a website that serves a piece of malware detected by the security solutions provider as Trojan.Malscript, a malicious element that exploits known vulnerabilities and performs heap spraying.

Internauts are advised to avoid such false warnings, even if they seem to be coming from a trusted person or company. Since email addresses can be easily spoofed and website names can be cleverly set up by typosquatters, the victim may not suspect that anything dangerous is hiding behind the innocent looking link.

Another recommendation is to install a good antivirus, making sure that its virus definition database is always up-to-date.