Get Smart about Business Spending
Worm uses familiar brands to lure people
Ho-ho-ho. This isn't an offer for a real coupon book from McDonald's. It's a new mass-mailing e-mail worm.
(Credit: Websense)On Tuesday security vendor WebSense issued an alert warning that holiday coupon e-mails from familiar companies may be malicious code in disguise, in this case a mass-mailing e-mail worm.
The warning cites one spoofed McDonald's e-mail that claims to present their latest discount menu, and asks the recipient to print out the attached coupon. A similar mailing pretending to be from Coca-Cola asks recipients to print out details about their new online game, and also offers recipients a chance to win Coca-Cola drinks for life. Websense says the attached zip file contains files named either coupon.exe or promotion.exe, both of which contain dropper files for remote access Trojan horses.
Previously, Websense issued an alert for a holiday-themed animated postcard.
This cute holiday card could install a worm on your PC, says McAfee.
(Credit: McAfee)On Wednesday, McAfee identified a third holiday-themed e-mail using the Hallmark brand. McAfee has named the malware used as W32/Xirtem@MM and says this particular worm carries a built-in SMTP engine that mass-mails copies of itself to e-mail addresses harvested from an infected machine.
In all cases the e-mail appears to be legitimate, using images taken from the McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and Hallmark sites.
To avoid compromise, antivirus experts recommend not opening e-mail attachments as well as keeping your desktop's antivirus protection up-to-date.
As CNET's resident security expert, Robert Vamosi has been interviewed on the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and other outlets to share his knowledge about the latest online threats and to offer advice on personal and corporate security. Listen to his podcast at securitybites.cnet.com or e-mail Robert with your questions and comments. 
Life is good. :)
If you run a virus in WINE, nothing really happens...
"Unfortunaly we couldn?t carry you the postal parcel sent on 28, October at the right time
as there is an incorrect recipient?s address.
To take your package back you should print the copy of invoice that is in the added file
Your UPS"
Of course I was suspicious from the get go and deleted the message, but with this being the season for mailing packages there may be people who will fall for it. Let see, UPS is either my backup battery or United Parcel Service and not the abbreviation for the USPS
That would be for pay pai as in paisan :)
you can usually tell when it is a fraudulent site ,just look carefully at the spelling ,the way it is worded and the content.there is always something that will give it away!
- by chonkers December 6, 2008 3:41 PM PST
- eBay is another biggie to watch for....I received one claiming that i have an outstanding product i have not paid for and eBay will be closing me down...just check into your paypal account and all will be cool......
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(14 Comments)yup, ok....i never even ordered a diamond necklace.....that was the giveaway and i have not bought anything through eBay....although i do use paypal on occassion
i gotta tell ya tho....it nearly had me....i really thought for a while i had bought this....be careful out there dudes