Spam Campaign with Fake Acknowledgement Letters Currently Hits Internauts

Softpedia.com published a report on 4th February, 014 stating that a new spam email campaign with emails entitled "Acknowledgement letter" have been spotted and the emails are designed to trick recipients into visiting a malware-serving website."

The fake emails read "We hereby confirm that your complaint has been received along with enclosures dated 30th January, 2014 which will be reviewed in court at the earliest possible time based on the documents and information you have provided before. You do not have to appear in person if the court does not suggest otherwise. Please check your complaint by clicking on the link and confirm it. If we do not get your confirmation, the claim will be cancelled and you will be informed of any judgment delivered with regard to your complaint."

Actually the email is not from any court and the claim about a complaint has been lodged is just a ruse used to trick people into clicking the link. The message is designed to panic recipients into clicking a link believing that they have somehow become involved in a court proceeding about which they do not know anything.

Clicking the link opens a compromised website which attempts to trick visitors in downloading a .zip. and users may believe that the supposed court documents are inside the .zip. but in fact it harbors a malicious .exe file.

Malware may be installed on their computer if victims take further step of opening the .exe file and this malware may join the infected computer to a botnet as well as download and install other malicious files.

The security experts add that this message is just one of the recent series of court related malware emails and another version purports to be an official message entitled "Notice to Appear in Court" and urges recipients to open an attached file for details.

Therefore, it is best to delete such unscrupulous scam emails from your inbox to mitigate the chances of being victim of such scam. However, if you are already a victim of such a scam then check your computer with an updated antivirus program to make sure it is not infected as advised by expert.

» SPAMfighter News - 2/8/2014