Be Careful Holiday E-cards Could Contain Malware Or Viruses

December 11, 2019

Written by wukovits

There’s a war on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it’s taking a very different form than what commonly gets reported in the news media.

This war is being waged by hackers and scammers, and they’re waging it by poisoning Holiday eCards designed to facilitate the distribution of malware.

BleepingComputer discovered the trend, noting an uptick of emails bearing headings like “You Have Received a Thanksgiving Day Greeting Card!”

Inside these emails, recipients find a word file bearing titles like “Thanksgiving-eCard.doc,” with the body of the email providing helpful instructions.

All the user must do to see their eCard is open the doc and click the enable content button.  Of course, doing so doesn’t display an eCard at all, but rather, installs whatever malware the email sender has decided to embed.

The Holidays are a time when everybody tends to let down their guard.  After all, who doesn’t enjoy getting fun, festive cards?  That’s exactly what the hackers are relying on.  It’s a clever bit of social engineering that has been finding success, which is only encouraging the hackers to employ the strategy even more.

Even if you haven’t received an email like this, it’s likely that you know someone who has.  Spread the word so more people are aware of the threat.  It’s such a shame that things like this are a reality that dampens the spirit of the season, but that’s the reality.  The more people we can alert to the dangers, the smaller the impact will be.

Stay on your guard, let all your employees know, and keep a watchful eye out.  As ever, the best defense is vigilance.  Don’t open emails from people you don’t know, and certainly don’t open any attachments that may be embedded in those emails.  That’s the key to having a hassle-free Holiday season this year.

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

Bayou Tech

We provide solutions for your business. Find out how we can help.

Related Articles

Some Amazon Device Features May Have Security Risks

Have you heard of Amazon Sidewalk? If not, it's definitely something you should be aware of. Depending on your point of view, the new feature, which was enabled by default on a wide range of Amazon devices by default on June 8 of this year (2021) is either...

Email Unsubscribe Scam Can Easily Fool Any User

Scammers are increasingly relying on a tried and true bit of social engineering to fool unsuspecting users into unwittingly signing up to receive a flood of additional spam email. They accomplish this by blasting out an email asking recipients if they wish to...

Update VMWare Software Immediately To Avoid Possible Attack

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency recently issued a warning to all companies running VMware Vcenter Server and VMware Cloud Foundation. They are asking them to download and apply the latest security patches as soon as possible because attackers...

Send us a message

Your message was sent.