New year, old tricks

It may be a brand new year, but many cybercriminals will continue to use old tricks – just as long as they carry on working.

Take this attack for instance, which we saw in our spam traps this morning.

An email is spammed out, claiming to come from Microsoft and urging the recipient to download a critical update to patch their systems.

The download and installation links, however, point to an executable program hosted on a website in Italy. Installing the code on your computer is obviously not a good idea.

We will, no doubt, see plenty of new tricks and variations on old themes from cybercriminals during 2009. But that shouldn’t make us close our minds to “golden oldie” threats that have been deployed by hackers time and time again over the years.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

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 "Smashing Security" podcast. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.