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Trojan downloader spam poses as admin email
Taking BOFH's name in vain
Two new strains of Trojan downloader have reached near epidemic proportions following an aggressive spamming campaign by hackers this week. Email security firm MessageLabs has intercepted over 54,000 copies of email-borne malware since early Thursday (7 July).
Both downloaders pose as email from the administrator of a user's domain (sample below) in an attempt to dupe users into opening infected emails under bogus threats that their email account will be shut down otherwise. Once activated, the malicious code gives hackers backdoor access to compromised Windows PCs. The difference between the two downloaders is that they pull disparate additional malicious components (keylogger and backdoor) from two different webservers, reports anti-virus firm F-Secure. ®
SUBJECT: Spam ReportATTACHMENT: report.log.exe
BODY:
Dear <email address> user,
Your e-mail account was used to send a huge amount of unsolicited spam messages during the recent week. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and confirm the attached document so you will not run into any future problems with the online service.
If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choice but to cancel your membership.
Virtually yours,
Network Administrator Team
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