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Zero Day

Ryan Naraine and Dancho Danchev

Malware Watch: U.S Chamber of Commerce official letter; DHL delivery error, IRS notifications

By | October 11, 2011, 7:10am PDT

In this week’s Malware Watch we’ll review three currently active and spreading malware campaigns.

In the first campaign, malicious attackers are attempting to trick end users into downloading and executing a malicious file attachment, while impersonating the U.S Chamber of Commerce.

According to AppRiver, the malicious attachments USChamber.zip are actually a copy of the ZeuS crimeware.

Spamvertised message:

Hello, on the advice of your partners, we are sending you this letter. In the attached file you will find the offer of cooperation and common development of adjacent areas of our business. Thank you for your attention.

The second campaign is impersonating DHL for malware-serving purposes.

Spamvertised message:

Dear Sir/Madam,Your package has been returned to the DHL office. The reason of the return is – Error in the delivery addressPlease refer to attached file for additional detailsAttached to the letter mailing label contains the details of the package delivery. You have to print mailing label, and come in the office in order to receive the packages.Thank you for attention.Your DHL

Detection rate for the malicious attachment.

The third campaign is impersonating the Internal Revenue Service for malware serving purposes.

Spamvertised message:

Tax notice, There are arrears reckoned on your account over a period of 2010-2011 year. You will find all calculations according to your financial debt, enclosed. Sincerely, Internal Revenue Service

Detection rate for the malicious attachment.

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Topics

Dancho Danchev is an independent security consultant and cyber threats analyst, with extensive experience in open source intelligence gathering, malware and cybercrime incident response.

Disclosure

Dancho Danchev

More details on Dancho Danchev's current and past professional affiliations, can be found in his LinkedIn profile.

Biography

Dancho Danchev

Dancho Danchev is an independent security consultant and cyber threats analyst, with extensive experience in open source intelligence gathering, and cybercrime incident response. He's been an active security blogger since 2007, and maintains a popular security blog sharing real-time threats intelligence data with the rest of the community on a daily basis. More details on Dancho Danchev's current and past professional affiliations, can be found in his LinkedIn profile. You can also follow him on Twitter

Talkback Most Recent of 3 Talkback(s)

  • Ah yes, the ever-popular forged sender id is alive and well
    Until the senderid gets locked down we will have this unrelenting issue.

    Lock-down how: PGP/GNuPG
    Encouraged/Mandated by: Federal Law, if enacted.
    Make part and parcel part of a email encryption privacy protection act.

    ISPs would then act based on the presence or absense of a signed certificate on each email:

    If absent, shunt to off-line
    If present, forward to recipient.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate
    11th Oct
  • RE: Malware Watch: U.S Chamber of Commerce official letter; DHL delivery error, IRS notifications
    @Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate
    Seems like a lot of trouble to go through to be able to send grandma a pic of the kid. I'm personally not for more laws and regulations. You can try as you might, but you'll never be able to protect stupid people from themselves by enacting more laws to inconvenience the normal folk.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bigsibling
    11th Oct
  • RE: Malware Watch: U.S Chamber of Commerce official letter; DHL delivery error, IRS notifications
    @Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate
    Amazing! what will these guys try next? Thank god I have my PC protected with the
    Best Antivirus I found on that site but I was not that lucky last week when I opened an attachment and my PC got loaded up with malware that completely shut me down. No one understand what a total hassle it is to have your computer infected till it happens.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    reviewsgirl
    13th Oct

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