Hi friend? Beware the spammed Trojan horse

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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 @grahamcluley.com
 @[email protected]

Many inboxes around the world will be seeing what appears to be an email from a friend this morning – and may be unaware that the attachment actually contains a malicious Trojan horse.

The emails, which have the subject line “hi friend”, are short and to the point:

Hi friend malicious email

Attached to the emails is a file, t658657.zip, which contains the Mal/EncPk-LE Trojan horse.

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Of course, anyone with common sense would never have opened the unsolicited attachment in the unsolicited email in the first place. But sadly common sense isn’t very common when it comes to computer security – and chances are that there are people out there whose mouse finger will have got twitchy at the mere thought of an email, and opened the attachment in curiousity without thinking of the possible consequences.

Get smart about securing your computer and protecting your data – don’t let a simple trick like this be exploited by cybercriminals to infect your PC.


Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and is the co-host of the popular "The AI Fix" and "Smashing Security" podcasts. Follow him on Bluesky and Mastodon, or drop him an email.

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