Systems Affected

* Any computer system can be affected when a person is a victim of social engineering, such as what can occur when malicious code is inadvertently downloaded from an attachment in a spoofed email.

Overview

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reporting that spoofed email messages that appear to come from the FTC contain malicious attachments. If you open one of these attachments you may infect your computer with a keystroke logger or other malicious code.

Solution

Be suspicious. Exercise caution when opening email messages and attachments. In this case, the FTC describes the spoofed email as follows:

The spoof email includes a phony sender’s address, making it appear the email is from “frauddep@ftc.gov” and also spoofs the return-path and reply-to fields to hide the email’s true origin. While the email includes the FTC seal, it has grammatical errors, misspellings, and incorrect syntax.

Attackers often construct email messages and web sites to imitate legitimate organizations in order to more effectively convince you to open and execute malicious attachments or click on malicious links.

See the Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing Cyber Security Tip in the references section for more information.

Install and update anti-virus software. Updated anti-virus software can protect you from malicious code. For
more information, please see Cyber Security Tip ST04-005 and ST05-006.

Description

This spoofed email activity relies on social engineering techniques to convince you to open and run a malicious attachment. There is no software vulnerability involved and there is no software update to protect against this type of activity. For more information please see the FTC report.

References

* Cyber Security Tip ST04-014 - Avoiding Social Engineering and
Phishing Attacks http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-014.html

* Cyber Security Tip ST04-010 - Using Caution with Email Attachments
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-010.html

* Cyber Security Tip ST04-005 - Understanding Anti-Virus Software
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-005.html

* Cyber Security Tip ST05-006 - Recovering from Viruses, Worms, and
Trojan Horses http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-006.html

* Trends in Badware 2007
http://www.stopbadware.org/home/consumerreport

* Don’t Open Bogus Email that Comes from the FTC
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/10/bogus.shtm

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The most recent version of this document can be found at:

<http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/alerts/SA07-303A.html>

National Cyber Alert System
Cyber Security Alert SA07-303A

Federal Trade Commission Reports Spoofed Email

Original release date: October 30, 2007
Last revised: –
Source: US-CERT

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