We have observed a fraudulent spam attack masquerading as an email from Symantec. This email is in Portuguese and contains the Symantec logo and coloring, which make it appear as a legitimate email from Symantec. The “From” line is forged to add further credibility. The “Subject” and “From” lines appear as follows:
Needless to say, this is not from Symantec. The body of the message contains text that indicates that the Symantec Security Check System has tested your computer and found “X” number of dangerous imperfections. The email goes on to say that your computer is infected with the virus “Worm@bda.267.” Users are encouraged to click the provided link to download updates to protect their systems from further damage from this worm. Incidentally, there is no such virus as Worm@bda.267.
In August, the "Internet" category of spam showed an increase of nine percent from July and now makes up 27% of all spam messages. This increase is detailed in the Symantec State of Spam Report for September, which will be released today. The escalation of Internet spam can be attributed to the prevalence of malicious code being sent around via spam emails over the past month. It seems that spammers will stop at nothing to deliver their payload-various techniques in spam containing viruses were observed over "the month of the virus." These include the following methods:
Sensationalized "fake" news headlines
Use of seemingly real news headlines
Purported download for the latest version of Internet Explorer
Malware + spam + phishing = The triple security threat for financial institutions
The theme to Flash Gordon is going through my head. You can't hear it, but I can. He's the savior of the universe, king of the impossible, and he'll save ev'ry one of us.
These lyrics seem so appropriate when it comes to all of the .swf (Flash) spam that we're observing. I imagine the spammer looks upon .swf files as saving his spam by ensuring it will bypass filters. Is .swf the "king of the impossible," able to avoid detection? The answer is "no."
What we have observed are spam messages that contain a link to an .swf file. This file is hosted on a popular image hosting site. When clicked, the link redirects to various Web sites and so far we've seen medical supplement and adult-oriented sites as the destination of the redirects.
The .swf attack with the largest volume observed is the German pharmacy attack, with over 300 million instances seen. The body of this message is in German and includes a list of medications that are...
