Monday, March 28, 2016

Ransomware - A Current Example


Please take a close look at this cut out grabbed diectly off my screen:

From the top the red frames are around:
  1. The virus infected scam email in the message list
  2. The totally unprofessionally empty subject line.
    [Bulk] is from my ISP telling me that this email was sent  from a server that is known to send out spam
    FW: tells me that the email was forwarded
  3. Addressing me with "ejheinze" shows that the sender does not even know my first name;
    ejheinze is the part of my email address before the @ character
  4. A totally unprofessional signature
  5. .zip is one of the potentially dangerous file types 
Do I really need to comment? Yes? Okay, here we go:
  1. Hm, no subject and I don't know a Jodie M and Comcast in her email address? I have no business at all with Comcast.
  2. Unprofessional and bordering on rude.
  3. Totally unprofessional and in a primitive way impolite.
  4. From Comcast I would at least expect some sort of company logo or an avatar.
  5. I wonder what might be in there...
    but with all the above I DO NOT CLICK on the attachment!
Instead I save the attached file and submit it to Virus Total (Wikipedia). And the "success" confirms my suspicion. 17 out of  58 anti virus programs flag the file as infected. See for yourself:
The rest was simple:
Delete the email which deletes the attachment as well.
Delete the file from the computer and
Empty Recycle Bin, just to be sure.

Remember: NEVER, EVER click on an email attachment unless you have verified it's legitimacy with the sender.

Stay safe.



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