FBI issues new spam warning
Catherine Andrews
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The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) issued a warning on Feb. 11 that hackers will be sending Valentine's Day messages with virus embedded in them.
According to the warning , "the e-mail directs the recipient to click on a link to retrieve the electronic greeting card (e-card)."
"Once the user clicks on the link, malware is downloaded to the Internet connected device and causes it to become infected and part of the Storm Worm botnet," the FBI said.
A botnet, short for "robot network," is "a network of compromised machines under the control of a single user. Botnets are typically set up to facilitate criminal activity such as spam e-mail, identity theft, denial of service attacks, and spreading malware to other machines on the Internet," according to the announcement.
Malware has many capabilities. "Currently, we tend to see two types of threats most commonly-attempts to steal your personal information or credentials and attempts to turn computers into a bot," said Adam Travis, Emerson's network and information security manager.
"The theft of personal information is all about stealing your money, or stealing your identity in order to later make money from it," Travis said.
The other kind of threat is when the virus attempts to take over a computer. "This is where they turn your computer into a bot on their botnet," he said.
Unfortunately, a person might have an infected computer and never even know it. Without their knowledge, they could be sending out spam or their computers could be trying to break into other computers.
"The Storm Worm Botnet is believed by many security researchers to be the largest in the world, and it is thought to be controlled by an organized crime ring operating out of Russia," Travis said.
This is not the first time a threat has been delivered through a holiday scam. In the last year, the Storm Worm virus has capitalized on various holidays. It sends out millions of e-mails advertising an e-card link within the text of the spam e-mail.
The FBI has said that Valentine's Day is the next target. They advise the public to "be wary of any e-mail received from an unknown sender. Do not open any unsolicited e-mail and do not click on any links provided."
For information on how to protect your computer from such viruses, Emerson's IT Helpdesk has an online guide.