NYC Traffic Ticket spam is really Blackhole malware attack

Don’t be too quick to believe that the New York State police are charging you with a traffic offence – that email you just opened in your inbox could actually be an attempt to infect your computer.

The team at SophosLabs have been intercepting a malicious spam campaign today which tries to trick the recipient into believing that they were caught speeding.

Here’s what a typical email used in the attack looks like:

Subject: NYC Traffic Ticket [id number]

Message body:

New York State * Department of Motor Vehicles
UNIFORM TRAFFIC TICKET

NEW YORK STATE POLICE * POLICE AGENCY

Local Police Code

THE PERSON DESCRIBED ABOVE IS CHARGED AS FOLLOWS

Time: 7:18 AM
Date of Offense: 09/12/2011

IN VIOLATION OF
NYS V AND T LAW DESCRIPTION OF VIOLATION:
SPEED OVER 55 ZONE
TO PLEAD, PRINT CLICK HERE AND FILL OUT THE…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity 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 analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.