In an ironic twist, cybercriminals are now sending their victims phishing emails with a subject line that reads, “We are going to sue you.”Inside, the recipient of this phishing email will be accused of sending out spam themselves, which is supposedly the reason they are being contacted to begin with.
Of course no phishing email attack would be complete without an attachment, which in this case is a .ZIP file that claims to be evidence of the victim’s spamming practices.
According to the Websense Security Labs blog, the .ZIP file attachment actually harbors a nasty little Trojan virus (W32/Trojan3.CXG) that will copy itself to the computer’s system path so it will be executed every time you start your computer.
If that isn’t delightful enough, the Trojan can then connect to remote servers to download additional malicious files to wreak havoc on your PC.
To make things appear more legitimate (and scary to the end user), the scammers have taken to making the emails appear as if they’re coming from an established company, rather than from some random individual that may not follow-up with their claim.
Rest assured that if you receive one of these emails that it is just a ploy to get you to download malicious content and you can delete the email without stressing about being served with a lawsuit.
Other subject lines used in this latest social engineering trick include:
- “You are sending ad messages”
- "This is the final warning"
- "We've sent you a copy of a complaint"
- "A message from our security service"
As always, proceed with caution when downloading files attached to emails. Be sure that your PC has the best protection possible by always running up-to-date antivirus software that includes anti-spam features. Additionally, make sure that you scan all downloaded files before opening them.
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