14 DAY TRIAL // Malware containing email is taking on diverse shapes, the latest being a message sent by a hotel which claims that a wrong transaction has been made and money was mistakenly redrawn from your bank account.
Unsuspecting victims tend to believe this email, even if they didn't have anything to do with the hotel mentioned in the message, as they might think that someone tampered with their account and spent the funds on services provided at the specified location.
The printscreen of such an email, provided by Graham Cluley, shows that the amounts involved are not high, this making it even more credible, as even people who don't have large savings can get duped by the cybercriminals.
The recipient is then advised to download the attached form, fill it accordingly and contact his bank to get a full refund of the amount.
To make things even more credible, the end of the message contains a disclaimer in which the sender states that they only mediate transactions and they have “no responsibility for any money transactions made by the Hotel.”
These emails are almost never the same, the name of the location, the amount, the archive name and even the name of the manager differ from one to the other.
One thing is definitely common for all of them, the zip file attached to each containing a Trojan virus.
Unlike other such spams, this one isn't trying to get your money by making you fill out a form in which you provide the hackers with your bank account details, instead it installs a virus onto your computer, giving the attackers control to all the information contained on the computer.
The purpose of these posts, as always, is to make people be more aware of potential threats coming from the virtual world. Hackers will use various methods and means to get your trust and even if it seems that they cannot do any harm, you might end up with your bank account wiped clean.