Outbreak: Fake Fedex Tracking Number emails carry malware

Cybercriminals have spammed out a widespread email attack, distributing malware in messages pretending to come from Fedex.

The emails, which have subject lines beginning “Fedex Tracking number” followed by a random reference number, pretend to come from named personnel inside “Fedex Support” and claim that the company was unable to deliver a package on the 27th of July.

Other emails being sent in the attack use a subject line of “Fedex Invoice copy” and “Fedex Item Status”, both followed by a random reference number.

Unlike many of the other Fedex-related malware attacks we have seen in the past, the emails carry the message about the failed delivery in the form of an image rather than text – possibly in an attempt to try and defeat more rudimentary anti-spam filters.

Attached to the emails is a file called

FEDEXInvoiceEE<random number>OP.zip

which Sophos detects as…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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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.