IDG News Service - Cyber-criminals have started preying on Verizon Wireless customers, sending out spam e-mail messages that say their accounts are over the limit and offering them a "balance checker" program to review their payments.

The e-mail messages, which look like they come from Verizon Wireless, are fakes; the balance checker is actually a malicious Trojan horse program.

"If you run the tool, obviously, your computer is toast," said Nick Bilogorskiy, manager of antivirus research at SonicWall. "You get infected with a Trojan that SonicWall catches under the name Regrun."

The scammers started sending out the messages around 11:30 a.m. Pacific on Friday, and they quickly flooded the Internet with their spam. Within a few hours, SonicWall had intercepted the messages at about 16 percent of its customers, Bilogorskiy said.

That translates to about 200,000 messages per hour on SonicWall's sensors. "The volume of these e-mails is just huge," Bilogorskiy said.

Victims who download the software open up a back door to their computer, where more malware can be downloaded from the Zbot botnet, which is known for stealthily lifting online banking credentials and emptying accounts. For the bad guys, the payoff is big. Recently, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said this type of financial fraud has removed US$100 million from U.S. bank accounts.

Criminals are always looking for new ways to trick people into downloading their software, and this billing-cycle scam is simply the latest, Bilogorskiy said.

Comment Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Reprinted with permission from

IDG.net
Story copyright 2009 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

Jump to comments

Verizon Wireless

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER

EFD vs. HDD - What You Need to Know

Enterprise flash drives provide a new Tier 0 storage layer capable of delivering high I/O performance at a very low latency. Proper use of EFDs in an Oracle environment can deliver increased performance compared to fibre channel drives. Read the recommendations for identification of the best DB components for EFDs.

WHITE PAPER

Gartner Research Report: Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers, 2009

The market for products to improve the delivery of application software over networks remains dynamic and innovative. Vendors focused on solving enterprises' most-pressing application problems have become the top players.

WHITE PAPER

Eight Criteria for Server Load Balancing

Server load balancers are a simple yet highly effective means to scale an application environment while ensuring its availability. Today's solutions should also address application performance and security. Read about the top eight criteria you should consider when choosing a server load balancer and how Citrix NetScaler meets those requirements.

What People Are Saying

7 comments | Add new

See all comments (7) | Add new

White Papers & Webcasts

Death to PST Files
Download Now

Business Process Framework Demo
Learn about Configurable Business Processes and Calculated Fields. Watch Now!

A Green Architectural Strategy That Puts IT in the Black
Levergage green computing across your data center. Read more now.

Manager Experience Demo
Go beyond self-service solutions to perform more effectively. Watch Now.

Quantifying the Business Value of VMware View
Learn why you should invest in a centralized virtual desktop.

WAN Optimization as a Managed Service: More than Network Cost Savings
View this Webcast Now!

Forrester Consulting Mobility Study: Taking Control of Enterprise Mobile Device Diversity
Download Now

Asia-Pacific Enterprise Network Solutions
Learn through this Webcast how your business can achieve reliability, performance and value in hard-to-reach locations within the Asia-Pacific region.

What IT Must Do to Support Employee-Owned BlackBerry, iPhone and Android Mobile Devices
Download Now

Mainsoft Webcast w/ Forrester Research: Drive SharePoint Adoption in Lotus Notes Shops
How can you drive mainstream user adoption of Microsoft SharePoint when your users rely on Lotus Notes?

All White Papers | All Webcasts

Computerworld Reports

8 Questions To Ask About Your Intrusion-Security Solution

Computerworld Technology Briefing: More than Business Value

Computerworld Briefing: Staffing for Intelligence

All Computerworld Reports

Disaster Recovery & Cost Savings Zone
Thousands of customers world-wide have turned to virtualization solutions from Riverbed as a way to reduce costs.