Phony FBI E-mail Launches Virus

By Todd Weiss

February 28, 2005 12:00 PM ET

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Computerworld - A fake e-mail that purports to be from the FBI is circulating on the Internet with a computer virus as its payload.
The FBI last week warned that the unsolicited e-mail tells users that "their Internet use has been monitored by the FBI's Internet Fraud Complaint Center and that they have accessed illegal Web sites."
The bogus message then asks recipients to click on an attachment and answer some questions about their alleged illegal Internet use. But rather than being a questionnaire, the attachment infects the recipient's computer with an as yet undetermined virus.
Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman, said last week that the agency discovered the phony e-mail over the previous weekend after several recipients notified the FBI. He said he didn't know exactly how many complaints were received.
The e-mail message has multiple misspellings and is written in broken English, Bresson said. "The wording is very poor, which helps us," he said. "We're hoping that that flags people."
Bresson said he didn't know whether any victims of the scam have provided their credit card numbers or other information.
Pete Lindstrom, an analyst at Spire Security LLC in Malvern, Pa., said fake e-mail messages will continue to be a problem until tighter standards for sending e-mails are adopted by senders and recipients.

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