More fake anti-virus attacks spammed out

We saw yet another example of an email-based scareware (fake anti-virus software) campaign this morning, which has also caught the eye of AusCERT.

The bad guys are sending out messages with the subject line “Important message for you”, posing as a support desk, and saying that your computer has been identified as being infected by a file-infecting virus (which they call W.744.A). This one goes so far as to name check Sophos, as well as the folks at Symantec, McAfee, Avira and Kaspersky.

Of course, the website and product that the email links to are designed to hornswoggle you, and compromise your computer systems.

We detect the malware linked to in these email as Troj/FakeVir-HX. But if you are running our email or web protection solutions then they are also intercepted. Users…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter or Mastodon to read more of the exclusive content we post.

Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.