Thread: Swine Flu Phishing Attacks and Email Scams

Phishers and spammers have caught swine flu fever and are exploiting fears around the outbreak to try to sell pharmaceutical products or steal information, security experts said Tuesday.

The e-mail scams have a subject line related to the swine flu and typically contain either a link to a phishing Web site or an attachment that contains malicious code, the United States Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT) said in an advisory.

One scam features a malicious Adobe PDF document titled "Swine influenza frequently asked questions.pdf," according to Symantec. The malicious PDF file has been recognized as "Bloodhound.Exploit.6" and it drops malicious InfoStealer code onto the victim's computer, the company said.

One spam with a subject line "Suspected Mexican flu toll hits 81" includes news headlines from legitimate agencies and asks recipients whether they are located in the U.S. or Mexico and if they know anyone affected by the outbreak. Recipients are asked to go to a Web site to fill in a form or reply to the e-mail and include their e-mail address, address, and phone number, according to a post on Symantec's blog.

McAfee Avert Labs also has information on Swine Flu-related spam on its site.

Cisco IronPort estimates that swine flu-related spam accounted for up to 4 percent of the worldwide total at its peak.

CERT tips for protecting against scams are to avoid following unsolicited Web links or attachments in e-mail messages and maintain up-to-date anti-virus software. More information is on the CERT site here and in a downloadable PDF.

For information about the swine flu visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site.

Source: Phishing with swine flu as bait | Security - CNET News

I just found this to be very important to share here.
Anyway, we can understand why the phishers phish us. But, I don't see any reason for the scammers scamming on about anything they see, without any benefit for themselves. They are not even making themselves, their sites, products or anything else popular most of the times.

I don't see the logic behind them wasting their time to waste others' time.

@Mods
Please move this to the relevant section if there is any better forum for this thread.

Very good info. Dhanesh, good work:thumbup:
These spammers seems more dangerous than us and flu

Originally Posted by Manish

These spammers seems more dangerous than us and flu

Yes, you are right. And, these spammers really sometimes get to one's nerves that they would like to kill them at that instant if they can get those guys within the reach of a hand. :31:
And I am someone who has been into that situation.

In this season of experienced spammers, having a good spam filter will not be able to save us from all this mess.

People do need to act smartly..Don't open any links in your e-mail unless you're dead sure...If you want to check what exactly it is, try to open the website first... That's good info dhanesh

P.S
Rep+ Bro..

Good info
Rep+

Thanks you gothic and sujith!

Good one

Good info. Reps+

Originally Posted by meetdilip

Good one

Originally Posted by saurav_kataruka

Good info. Reps+

Thanks dilip and saurav!!!

By the way, getting on-topic, it is still being seen that many people are falling prey to this "Swine flu flu".

Spammers are "OK", but the scammers really have a bad, cunning mind.