Fake Amazon gift card offer infects computers with Trojan malware: Beware

Don’t take the bait—
Virtually everyone who has an email account is familiar with scams that try to phish for personal information. But most people avoid them because they are so easy to spot such as the popular “You’ve just won the $1,000,000 lottery!” or offshoots of this theme.

But a recent scam involving free gift cards from Amazon.com or Adobe updates is even fooling some of the most careful of people.

The free gift card scam
The fake gift card offer, supposedly from Amazon.com, comes in the form of an email which states in the subject heading, “Your gift card order.”

The full message is:

“You have received a gift card in the amount of $250. An offer of the gift card is valid until December 7. Take a chance and use our gift card, and as a bonus we will deliver your order free of charge.”

The email recipient is then directed to download an attachment named “Gift-card.zip.”

The troubles begin
For people who fall for the scam, nothing good comes from the experience. As soon as they download the attachment for their “free gift card,” a Trojan downloader infects the computer and opens it up to vicious software that can do serious damage to the system and files.

Beware of fakes
Troy Gill, a researcher at security firm AppRiver, said that the holiday season is ripe for scammers who try to entice online individuals into falling for their traps.

“Of course with all the online shopping, gift giving/receiving this time of year, there is an added aura of authenticity to these messages. In fact, I ordered an Amazon gift card just yesterday.”

Fake Adobe updates too
In addition to the Amazon.com free gift card scam, Adobe has also fallen to scam artists who are trying to steal sensitive information from their victims.

The latest Adobe scam tells the email recipient that they have an “Adobe software upgrade notification” and are instructed to download the .zip file that is attached to the document.

The .zip file masks the real identity of what the content really is—a modified version of the Zeus Trojan program, which was originally written to steal information related to the victim’s banking account information.

Be on guard
Graham Cluley from Sophos, a security company said:

“Computer users need to learn that Adobe never sends up software updates as an email attachment, and any legitimate upgrades should always be downloaded from Adobe’s own website.”

Via MSNBC

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Written by: Frank Ling on Wednesday, December 07, 2011 – 1:27 PM

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