New wave of phishing attacks serves malware to PCs and Macs

Night Hawk

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New wave of phishing attacks serves malware to PCs and Macs[/h] By Ed Bott
March 23, 2012, 5:24am PDT


Summary: Malware distributors have launched a new wave of attacks aimed at taking over unpatched PCs and Macs. They look like routine messages from a bank or a social network, but instead of phishing for passwords, they’re serving up malware.


In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed an alarming increase in fraudulent email messages coming to some old, well-established email addresses of mine.


It’s not just the quantity of messages that’s noteworthy, it’s the quality as well. This particular wave of attacks includes some attacks that are frighteningly real looking. And they’re being used to serve up a toxic brew of malware to unprotected systems.


Consider these two examples of messages I received this week. The first appears to be a fraud alert from American Express:


eb-amex-phish.png




It has all the right logos, and the wording has the same professional tone and grammatical accuracy I would expect of a legitimate communication from American Express. Unlike many phishing messages, this one made me look much more closely, and I suspect that the click-through rate was higher than most such attempts.

see full report
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    1st W10 Professional x64/W7 Ultimate x64 - 2nd Remote system: W10 Insider Builds/W7 Professional
    Computer type
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    Custom Builds
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    AMD Phenom II X4 975 Deneb 3.6ghz -2nd case AMD Atholon II 3.2ghz
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    Creative Xtreme Gamer - 2nd case Realtek Onboard audio
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    Acer 19" dual monitor setup - 2nd case HP 20" lcd
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    1440x900 same on both builds
    Hard Drives
    1st build
    WD Caviar Black Edition Sata II 1tb two OS drives
    WD RE "Heavy Duty Sata II 2tb two Storage/Backup
    2nd build
    WD Blue Sata II 500gb
    WD Black Edition Sata III 1tb
    WD Green Power Sata II 1tb in external usb enclosure
    PSU
    Corsair TX750H 750w -Corsair 500w
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    Antec 900-2 -NXZT Vulcan Mini tower/carrying handle
    Cooling
    120mm front pair, 120 rear 200cm top - 120mm Front intake 200mm side cover
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    Azio Blue led back lit both builds.
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    two MSI 22x ide dvd burners, 25 usb flash drives used for Linux Live, live data recovery 128gb, and Windows 7, 10 usb installation keys
I received a message from "Bank of America" on my answering machine telling me about my new account. I don't have an account with "BofA"!!

:eek:
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ...
"DELETE MESSAGE"! That's the simple solution for any telemarketing scam!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    1st W10 Professional x64/W7 Ultimate x64 - 2nd Remote system: W10 Insider Builds/W7 Professional
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom Builds
    CPU
    AMD Phenom II X4 975 Deneb 3.6ghz -2nd case AMD Atholon II 3.2ghz
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4
    Memory
    Kingston Hyper-X DDR3 1600mhz 16gb - 2nd case Kingston Hyper-X "Fury" DDR3 1600mhz 8gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    MSI Radeon HD 5750 1gb - 2nd AMD Radeon 6450
    Sound Card
    Creative Xtreme Gamer - 2nd case Realtek Onboard audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer 19" dual monitor setup - 2nd case HP 20" lcd
    Screen Resolution
    1440x900 same on both builds
    Hard Drives
    1st build
    WD Caviar Black Edition Sata II 1tb two OS drives
    WD RE "Heavy Duty Sata II 2tb two Storage/Backup
    2nd build
    WD Blue Sata II 500gb
    WD Black Edition Sata III 1tb
    WD Green Power Sata II 1tb in external usb enclosure
    PSU
    Corsair TX750H 750w -Corsair 500w
    Case
    Antec 900-2 -NXZT Vulcan Mini tower/carrying handle
    Cooling
    120mm front pair, 120 rear 200cm top - 120mm Front intake 200mm side cover
    Keyboard
    Azio Blue led back lit both builds.
    Mouse
    MSI DS200 11 button programmable Gaming optical mouse - Odessa 3 button dual scroll trackball
    Internet Speed
    30mbps
    Other Info
    two MSI 22x ide dvd burners, 25 usb flash drives used for Linux Live, live data recovery 128gb, and Windows 7, 10 usb installation keys
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