As the humanity becomes more and more dependent on technologies and especially the Internet, cyber criminals unite into organized-crime groups to carry out fraudulent projects to swindle money from unsuspecting victims. In most cases, these criminals are just skilled scammers who use social engineering [1] methods to trick users into installing malware on their computers.
The active usage of spam and malware-filled emails is the best evidence of it. Instead of spending long hours creating elaborate attack schemes, hackers are now working on email virus examples that could convince naive employee to open an email attachment and help them attack the whole company's network. Such techniques have already been proved to be highly efficient.
Indeed, malware emails are so far the most efficient attack vector. Examples given below unveil phishing emails that are typically used for malware proliferation. Hopefully, these email virus examples will help you to identify phishing emails in the future and make you become more skeptical about the reliability of emails sent to you by unknown individuals.
Phishing emails that contain an attached resume usually are sent to recruitment specialists, managers or company owners who make hiring decisions. Such emails usually contain just a few lines of text, inviting the recipient to open the attached resume.
Typically, scammers expect these phishing emails to be convincing when trying to infect a particular company or healthcare organization. Such ransomware email examples were mainly used in CryptoWall 3. See some examples of such phishing emails below.
Picture shows some examples of phishing emails that ostensibly deliver someone's resume, which contains a malicious code. Cyber criminals tend to phish Amazon users with fake emails sent from bogus email accounts that seem legitimate at first sight. Such phishing emails can be used to swindle money from the victim or to deliver a malicious email attachment that carries a serious computer virus.
For instance, scammers were using auto-shipping amazon. Below, you can see an example of malicious email delivering Locky and an example that was obtained during analysis of Spora distribution campaign. Amazon users targeted via phishing emails that deliver ransomware such as Locky or Spora. The only problem is that the Word document actually contains a malicious script that gets activated via the Macro function. An example of the described email virus is provided below.
Malicious emails that contain attached "Invoice" file were used for Locky ransomware distribution. Love sports? Then you must be aware of sport-themed spam.
Lately, researchers from Kaspersky noticed an increase [6] in emails targeting users interested in the European Football Championship, upcoming World Cups in and , as well as Olympic Games in Brazil. Some types of email viruses are more dangerous than others. A few of the most threatening types of email viruses include:.
Polymorphic viruses are those which have code in them that changes how they operate, thus defeating detection by normal methods. These complex and especially dangerous viruses employ various tactics to modify themselves during each infection.
They vary their physical file makeup by encrypting their codes and using different encryption keys generated by mutation engines each time that they infect a device. This technique allows the majority of polymorphic viruses to remain undetected by antivirus software which is engineered to recognize a static, unchanging code.
Polymorphic viruses are usually spread via spam email, malware or infected websites. VIRLOCK, one of the most notorious polymorphic viruses, evolved to combine file infection and ransomware, making it especially difficult to detect and remove.
As computer viruses have become increasingly problematic, methods of detection have evolved to combat them. There are several different methods that antivirus programs employ to identify viruses, malware and other computer threats. These methods include:. Regardless of the techniques that it utilizes to detect viruses and other threats, antivirus software has its limitations. For instance, antivirus programs are often ineffective in detecting zero-day viruses.
Even those that use non-signature-based methods frequently fall short. Virus designers test the new viruses that they create on established antivirus applications to ensure that they are not detected before releasing these viruses into the wild. Knowing how to recognize an email virus, as well as implementing basic email security best practices, is imperative in protecting yourself and your company from infection. Here are some tips for identifying viruses and preventing infection:.
Antivirus software plays an important role in protecting against email viruses; however, this technology must be implemented as an element of a comprehensive, multi-layered cloud email security solution to effectively combat advanced attacks. Defense in depth is imperative to a successful email security approach.
Do you have suggestions for how I might get help with the infection and keep my account or should I do as you suggest and just stop using it? Become a Patron of Ask Leo! Email accounts do not get infected with viruses. They may carry viruses as payloads in email messages, but viruses to not affect the email account itself. Someone is sending email from your account, probably to email addresses that are in the contact list or address book of that account.
Someone guessed your password, or stole it somehow to login to your email account. If you still have access to the account, then rather than closing it you should immediately change your password and every other bit of information stored as part of the account that could be used as account password recovery information by the hackers. You must assume that the hackers will have read all of that and perhaps changed some of it and that they are prepared to perform an account recovery to re-hack your account at any time.
More on this here: Is changing my password enough? Regaining access to the account is often difficult to impossible. In fact, refreshing yourself on how to stay safe on the internet might be a good idea as well. Subscribe to Confident Computing! Less frustration and more confidence, solutions, answers, and tips in your inbox every week.
Leo: I use MSN Hotmail for my main email account the one I used in this comment I have found that over the past several months the Hot Mail system has become very slow and non responsive.
I have complained to them and they have denied any problem but the system miraculously speeds up for a short time after each complaint, only to slow down again a few days later.
I have recently downloaded Internet Explorer 9 Beta and I now find that the editing function in Hot Mail is messed up. Back spacing to correct a typo when composing an email causes the display to become unreadable until the correction is completed. Microsoft needs to get their act together fast, Yahoo, Google and AOl are all doing a much better job on handling web based email.
What do you expect? A Beta is a Beta. It is not meant for anything but test purposes. You should not even run it on your main computer unless it is in a VM. No problems you have can be blamed on Microsot.
Did you read the EULA and release notes? There are many warnings to that effect. YOU allowed these things to happen by not paying attention. Great response. I would like to add that the user should run a full virus scan of their computer using more then one security client to ensure that their own computer has not become a bot or is hacked. While the e-mail account may be the only account hacked your computer may also be infected and that is how they got your password in the first place.
Although less necessary on later, faster computers, it can be helpful in ensuring that Broken Links are not accumulating. Take a good look at old emails accumulating in your account or on your PC. Get rid of the majority. My mom gets an email that says windows live is having problems with spammers and fake accounts, and wants her to fill in her name, username, password and reply back via email. The other 3 of us did not get this same email-so we knew it was a hoax right away.
What on earth does anyone but you need your password for? What do you need your password for? To log into your account. Otherwise, never, never never give out your password. In fact, millions of computer users around the world use desktop email software instead of browser-based tools such as Gmail.
The risk of opening cybersecurity threats is substantially higher when using them. Antivirus software that scans attachments for viruses is essential for computer users. Not only can it help you avoid viruses, but by scanning your outbound messages en-route to the mail server, it can prevent spam email or corrupted attachments from going out to your professional or personal networks.
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