Cyberoam Warns! Ebola Forms New Exploits among Scammers

Cyberoam at the weekend, raised alarm of scammers now using Ebola virus outbreak in West African as a lure of Phishing campaign.

In its blog post, www.cyberoam.com/blog/death-of-robin-williamsebola-epidemic-new-exploit-topics-among-scammers, Cyberoam said that in lieu of the Ebola Epidemic and as with most phishing emails, the message body warns the user of a trending problem and unsuspecting users could open the email, click on the links or even share them with others.

Kalpesh Devmurari, representative of Cyberoam reported that the scary aspect in these emails seem like they come from a legitimate source like your friends, colleagues, thus increasing the chances of a victim opening them.

“Once you open that email it will ask you to click on a link to read more about the report. Following the link, infects your computer with the Trojan.Zbot malware. This malware runs on different versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system and is often used to steal information submitted through online forms such as usernames, passwords, banking details, etc”.

He also cited the death of Robin Williams, as been exploited by the cyber criminals also.

Devmurari said, “We recently lost Robin Williams – a well-known American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. I’ve been thinking a lot about Robin Williams, and his suicidal behaviour. It’s extremely sad that such a talented, funny man – who brought joy to so many lives, felt that there was no other option than suicide. I was curious, to know the story behind his suicide. Many people received an email capsuling his life and link to photos/videos of the great comedian. I personally could not resist but open the email, following the links, as the great comedian was still playing on our minds.

“Unfortunately, those emails were later found not to be genuine. They were phishing emails launching malware. It turned out to be part of a big Phishing Scam, as Hackers exploited death of Robin Williams for a full-fledged malware campaign. I was shocked when I got to know that scammers can even use such topics for Cybercrime. I researched more and found that this is not the first time it happened.

“Over the years, scammers have used both real and fake celebrity deaths as a way to persuade users to click on links and perform actions. There has been lot of instances in past like deaths of Amy Winehouse, Paul Walker, and fake deaths of Miley Cyrus and Will Smith. News of MH 17 has also become a part of similar scams.The tragic death of actor Robin Williams had opened a world of opportunities for identity thieves as these cybercriminals use news of a celebrity death for their financial gain.

“Yet another form in which criminals utilised the incident was by using it as a social media post on their Facebook page that provides a link to videos or photos related to Robin Williams. The post appeared to come from Facebook friends who were less suspected.

“In another case, the link showed a video of a rare footage of the suicide. Both the links were fake and don’t deliver what they promise. When a user clicks on these links, they might be taken to a page that prompts them to complete a survey to unlock the rare video. This is a hoax, and by completing the survey, the user just works for the scammer who gets paid by survey sites. And that’s not all, when the user fills the survey form, they also pass critical information to the scammer who can use it to create further phishing attacks for identity theft.

“It’s not necessary that all the links will take you to the survey site, some of them are very dangerous and can right away start downloading malware on your machine. It could be key loggers stealing your credit card number, user-password details and much more”.

To avoid being victimised by such scams, Devmurari advised users should be educated about Phishing scams.

“Be cautious of emails received from unknown senders. Open email attachment with extreme care. Always check the attachment’s extension. Never open attachment with “pif”, “exe”, “bat”, “.vbs” extension. Do not visit suspicious websites or follow the links provided at those websites. Do not share personal or financial information over internet/email

Talking about Cyberoam security solutions, the Anti-Spam feature available over its appliance range offers real-time spam protection over SMTP, POP3, IMAP protocols, protecting organizations from zero-hour threats and blended attacks that involve spam, malware, botnets, phishing, Trojans and more.

Apart from that, Cyberoam also offers comprehensive Email Security, preventing sophisticated forms of zero-hour threats and blended attacks involving spam, botnets, phishing, spyware and more.