Recent phishing emails

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VRT reports on a phishing campaign seen recently. This particular phishing attempt arrives as an unsolicited email that appears to be from UPS, about a delivery failure.

As with all phishing attempts, the goal is to trick the email recipient into thinking that this is a legitimate email from UPS. Once the user has been tricked into clicking one of the embedded links, software is installed surreptitiously. This software then attempts to steal usernames, passwords and banking information.

Other phishing attacks may use slightly different approaches, such as tricking the user into entering their banking information onto a malicious web page.

There are very few anti-malware packages that can prevent this sort of attack. The exceptions are typically expensive and geared toward corporate clients. Average users must rely on their own common sense to detect these attacks and simply delete the offending email.

About jrivett

Jeff Rivett has worked with and written about computers since the early 1980s. His first computer was an Apple II+, built by his father and heavily customized. Jeff's writing appeared in Computist Magazine in the 1980s, and he created and sold a game utility (Ultimaker 2, reviewed in the December 1983 Washington Apple Pi Journal) to international markets during the same period. Proceeds from writing, software sales, and contract programming gigs paid his way through university, earning him a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) degree at UWO. Jeff went on to work as a programmer, sysadmin, and manager in various industries. There's more on the About page, and on the Jeff Rivett Consulting site.

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