“Payment request from” emails carry dangerous payload

Cybercriminals are up to their dirty tricks again, this time spamming out en masse a dangerous email carrying a Trojan horse.

The emails pretend to come from the “Customer Support” division of an online banking organisation and be in connection to payments requested from a variety of different organisations, using the subject line:

payment request from “[company name]”

Here’s just a small sample of the possible subject lines:

Here’s the text of a typical email, but remember that the company’s name and the amount of money that they are requesting payment for can vary:

We recorded a payment request from “Time Warner Cable” to enable the charge of $66.10 on your account.

The payment is pending for the moment.

If you made this transaction or if you just authorize this payment, please ignore or remove this email message. The transaction will be shown on your monthly statement as “Time Warner Cable”.

If…

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.