Computer Repair San Antonio-Watch Out For Fraudulent Tax Emails

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Scammers Portray IRS in Latest Phishing Scam

Earlier this week, the IRS issued a warning to taxpayers regarding a fraudulent email that has been impersonating the agency.  The email includes tax transcripts, in an attempt to get the users to click on the documents, which contain malware.  The biggest risk would be employees clicking on these emails on company networks.  By doing so, the malware would spread network-wide.

The scam email includes an attachment labeled “tax account transcript” or something similar, with a subject line using some variation of the phrase “tax transcript.”

According to KLFY News 10, this malware, known as Emotet, generally poses as specific financial institutions in its effort to trick people into opening infected documents.  This time, they’ve portrayed the IRS.  Cybersecurity experts have labeled Emotet one of the most costly and destructive malware variants in the wild.

Proceed with Caution

The IRS has the following suggestions if you receive this email scam:

  1. Do not open the email or attachment.
  2. Delete or forward the email to phishing@irs.gov.
  3. If an email goes to your business, notify the company’s technology professionals.

The bottom line – the IRS does not, and will not, send out unsolicited emails.  Therefore, if you receive an unsolicited email claiming to be from them– do not open it, it is a scam.

If you have been scammed by Fake Tech support follow this advice-Computer Repair San Antonio

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1.Report the scam

In the US: File a complaint (FTC) | More information about online fraud

In Canada:  Contact Law Enforcement

In the UK: Report fraud | Report cold call (cold calls are illegal in the UK)

In Australia: Report a scam | Report telemarketing abuse

 

2.Report misleading ads
“TrustInAds.org comprises a group of Internet industry leaders that have come together to work toward a common goal: Protect people from malicious online advertisements and deceptive practices.” Report misleading ads here.

 

3.Shut down their remote software account

Write down the TeamViewer ID (9-digit code) and send it to TeamViewer’s support (they can later on block people/companies with that information)

LogMeIn: Report abuse

 

4.Spread the word
You can raise awareness by letting your friends, family, and other acquaintances know what happened to you. Although this may be an embarrassing experience if you fell victim to these scams, educating the public will help someone caught in a similar situation and deter further scam attempts.

If the scammers represent themselves as working with or for Malwarebytes, please make sure to contact Malwarebytes support – we are actively working to combat these scammers. Any information you can provide about these scammers will help us prevent those scammers from targeting other people.

 

If you already paid:

Contact your financial institution/credit card company to reverse the charges and keep an eye out for future unwanted charges.

If you gave them personal information such as date of birth, Social Security Number, full address, name and maiden name you may want to consult the FTC’s website and report identity theft.

 

If you have been contacted by a company that you think may be attempting to scam you, please see the following list of confirmed scammers (please make sure to click on the “Tech Support Blacklist” link for the up-to-date list).

Credt: https://support.malwarebytes.com/docs/DOC-1905

SPECIAL BULLETIN

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SPECIAL BULLETIN
Malwarebytes www.malwarebytes.com

Dear ,

A massive ransomware attack spread across the globe today, locking up thousands of hospital, telecommunications, and utilities systems in nearly 100 countries. The attack used data stolen from the NSA to exploit vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows and deliver the WanaCrypt0r ransomware. The demand was for $300 per PC.

While the ransomware was first detected wreaking havoc in emergency rooms and doctors’ offices in the UK, the infection quickly spread worldwide, including to the US.

We’re alerting you to reassure you that if you’re currently using the premium version (or the premium trial) of Malwarebytes with real-time protection turned on, you are protected from this threat. Our premium technology blocks the WanaCrypt0r ransomware before it can encrypt your files. (The free version of Malwarebytes, however, does not protect you against WanaCrypt0r. To see which version you have, open up your Malwarebytes software and look for the version name at the top of the window.) Learn more about Malwarebytes

If you’re not currently using the premium version of Malwarebytes, we recommend that you update your Microsoft Windows software immediately. Microsoft released a patch for this vulnerability in March, but many users haven’t updated, leaving their computers open to this attack.

Here at Malwarebytes, we pledge to keep you protected and informed about the latest issues. Your peace of mind is our number one priority.

Sincerely,

The Malwarebytes team
P.S. Learn more about this threat here.

Massive Global Ransomware Attack Underway, Patch Available

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This is a public service security announcement for all users of computers running any version of Windows.

We have confirmed that a serious virulent ransomware threat known as WannaCrypt0r/WannaCry has affected Windows computers on shared networks in at least 74 countries worldwide, with 57,000 reported individual cases being affected. And according to the analysis team at Kaspersky Lab, that number is growing fast.

Once one computer on a network is affected, the malware infection easily spreads to other Windows computers on the same network, shutting down entire government agencies and national infrastructure companies. Hospitals across the UK were being forced to divert patients and ambulance routes as of Friday afternoon, and several utility companies across Europe reported infection across their computer networks according to BBC News.

What Is Ransomware?

Ransomware is a kind of malicious script or software that installs itself on your computer without your knowledge. Once it’s installed and running, it will lock down your system and won’t allow you to access any files or programs on that computer. Usually, as in this current WannaCry exploit, it will alert you to the lockdown with an impossible-to-ignore pop-up screen which informs you that your computer is being held for ransom. To unlock your system and regain access to the computer being held hostage, the lock screen informs you that you must purchase an unlock tool or decryption key from the hacker.

Where Did This Threat Originate?

In this case, Microsoft has been aware of the vulnerability since March 2017, when it published a Security Bulletin covering the potential risk. According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, early indicators seem to point to the attack originating in China, but more information is needed.

How Can You Tell If Your Computer Is Infected?

The most obvious way to tell if your computer has been affected is if you are seeing a ransomware pop-up screen when you start up your computer. But because we don’t know how long the malware sits on your computer or network, not seeing this pop-up isn’t necessarily an indication that you haven’t been infected. The bottom line: if your Windows computer has connected to a shared network, such as those found in schools, public places, cafes and businesses, and you don’t have complete control over every computer on that network and haven’t been keeping Windows up-to-date, your computer may be infected.

How to Protect Yourself From the Vulnerability

According to Microsoft a fix for this vulnerability was released on March 14th for all affected versions of Windows. If you are running Windows and have automatic updates enabled you should be okay. If you don’t and haven’t updated recently you should update to the most recently released version immediately. It is important to note that unsupported versions of Windows, like XP, did not receive this security update. Those systems should either be isolated or shut down.

Please pass this along to your friends and family. Those that are less technical may not have updates auto-enabled, and may need a helping hand updating their operating system.

Massive Ransomware attack going worldwide.

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Massive Ransomware Outbreak

We have an update on this outbreak here. The ransomware is using an NSA exploit leaked by The Shadow Brokers, and has made tens of thousands of victims worldwide, including the Russian Interior Ministry, Chinese universities, Hungarian telcos, FedEx branches, and more. Original article below.

A ransomware outbreak is wreaking havoc all over the world, but especially in Spain, where Telefonica — one of the country’s biggest telecommunications companies — has fallen victim, and its IT staff is desperately telling employees to shut down computers and VPN connections in order to limit the ransomware’s reach.

The culprit for these attacks is v2.0 of the WCry ransomware, also known as WannaCry or WanaCrypt0r ransomware. For those affected, you can discuss this ransomware and receive support in the dedicated WanaCrypt0r & Wana Decrypt0r Help & Support Topic.

WCry ransomware explodes in massive distribution wave

Version 1.0 of this ransomware was discovered by Malwarebytes researcher S!Ri on February 10 and then spotted in a brief campaign on March 25 by GData security researcher Karsten Hahn.

Version 2.0 was detected for the first time around four hours ago by independent security researcher MalwareHunter. The security researcher says the ransomware came out of nowhere and started spreading like wildfire.

In these first four hours, WCry 2.0 made more victims than Jaff, a ransomware spotted this week distributed via the Necurs botnet, the former home of the Locky ransomware. In numbers, in just four hours WCry made 1.5 times more victims than Jaff did all week.

Currently, researchers weren’t able to pinpoint the exact origin of the WCry distribution campaign. At the moment, it could be from malvertising, exploit kits, email spam, or hand-cranked RDP attacks.

Source  https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/telefonica-tells-employees-to-shut-down-computers-amid-massive-ransomware-outbreak/

No, Lowes and Home Depot Are NOT Giving Away Mother’s Day Coupons

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While I’m certain the executives at Home Depot and Lowes love their mammas I am also certain they aren’t giving away $50 and $100 gift cards.

I spotted this on Twitter and had this to say:

Sure enough, I load up Facebook and there it is:

Please note these are easy to spot. Much like the Ray-Ban scam, you can see the website is giftreward.us. I’ve seen Ray-Ban scams where the website is something ridiculous like f9d9ok6yc.po.

Think about it. If they were doing a giveaway, they would do it on their own, top-tier domain name. This is all you need to know, but some do offer other indicators. I often see the timers. You’ve got 24 hours to claim it! This is a sense of urgency to get you in there and get your information before you have time realize what just happened.

These two scams aren’t doing anything that crazy, only saying”1 per household” which is designed to make it feel legitimate. You’ll be taken to a survey page which will ramp up to try and collect your personal information just before you get your fake coupon.

The goal here is always to get as much of your information as possible. While you may only get your email address added to some updated spam lists (which are sold on the web to anyone) you also risk having your credit card or your identity stolen. Scams like the Ray-Ban one are looking to get your credit card information.

If only one of my Facebook friends sees this, my day will be complete. Please use the share buttons at the top of this article to share with your Facebook friends.

 

http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/nolowes_and_home_depot_are_not_giving_away_mothers_day_coupons.html

Chrome and Firefox Phishing Attack Uses Domains Identical to Known Safe Sites

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Chrome and Firefox Phishing Attack Uses Domains Identical to Known Safe Sites

This entry was posted in General Security on April 14, 2017 by Mark Maunder   62 Replies

This is a Wordfence public service security announcement for all users of Chrome and Firefox web browsers: 

There is a phishing attack that is receiving much attention today in the security community.

As a reminder: A phishing attack is when an attacker sends you an email that contains a link to a malicious website. You click on the link because it appears to be trusted. Merely visiting the website may infect your computer or you may be tricked into signing into the malicious site with credentials from a site you trust. The attacker then has access to your username, password and any other sensitive information they can trick you into providing.

This variant of a phishing attack uses unicode to register domains that look identical to real domains. These fake domains can be used in phishing attacks to fool users into signing into a fake website, thereby handing over their login credentials to an attacker.

 

Read More

Chrome and Firefox Phishing Attack Uses Domains Identical to Known Safe Sites

Changes to fake USPS delivery messages delivering malware

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Share This post with your friends and contacts. Help THEM to stay safe:
https://myonlinesecurity.co.uk/changes-to-fake-usps-delivery-messages-delivering-malware/
 Posted on 13 April 2017 9:27 pm by

We have all become accustomed to seeing USPS, UPS, DHL. FEDEX and all the other delivery companies being spoofed with emails pretending to be from them delivering all sorts of malware, usually via zip attachments containing JavaScript files. There have been 2 main campaigns that I have documented HERE and HERE

Recently the first campaign changed slightly and started to deliver 3 different malwares not the regular 2 we had been seeing, but still kept to the same delivery method and JavaScript file names.

On 11 April 2017 another researcher Brad Duncan posted this blog post / diary entry on SANS site noting a new delivery method that delivered Mole Ransomware.

I saw the same method used on 12 April 2017 with minor differences.

Now today 13 April 2017 at about 1930 we are seeing the start a hybrid campaign mixing elements of all the previous campaigns.

Remember many email clients, especially on a mobile phone or tablet, only show the Name in the From: and not the bit in <domain.com >. That is why these scams and phishes work so well.

There are a multitude of different subjects. Some of then ones I received today are:

  • OFFICIAL USPS REFUND INFO
  • AUTOMATED USPS OFFICIAL LETTER REGARDING YOUR PARCEL
  • Serious trouble reported to the USPS customer support team

 

Typical senders imitating USPS include

  • USPS Support Management <nupoqu5326840@hespo.hr>
  • USPS Express Delivery <owesnro83686500@rlcotesons.com>
  • USPS Support <it24433608@sonomaec.com>

 

Some of the email contents look like

With this notification, we would like to inform you you that your item was

not delivered.

Please check the required information by following this link.

http://ywyda84232usps.maildeliverys.com/rmeidu838336

With gratitude.

Yoshiko Kepp – USPS Parcels Operation Agent.

or

We had some problems with your order N471357737, but our support team will

do its best to solve the issue.

Please, click on the link provided below to contact the USPS customer

support.

http://oxydifud80147400usps.maildeliverys.com/poacno450843

Sincerely yours.

Mallie Kirkhart – USPS Chief Delivery Manager.

And

With this notification, we would like to inform you you that your item was

not delivered.

Please check the required information by following this link.

http://ywyda84232usps.maildeliverys.com/rmeidu838336

With gratitude.

Yoshiko Kepp – USPS Parcels Operation Agent.

 

These are very similar to the ones I saw yesterday and Brad saw the day before. These all use various subdomains of maildeliverys.com to divert to http://tramplinonline.ru/counter/1.htm  where you see what looks like a word online website and you are invited to download then latest plugin version to read the documents online.

Now this is where the hybrid element comes into play. Once you press download, you get a zip file plugin.zip which extracts to plugin.js  Current Virus total detections: Payload Security  Whereas Tuesday and yesterday you got a direct mole ransomware download not going through all this rigmarole and adding extra malware into the mix.

This uses the same delivery methods previously described  where a list of 5 sites is encoded in an array. The script tries each site in turn until it gets a response and delivers counter.txt which goes through the whole routine again until all copies of the malware are downloaded and auto-run.   Various obfuscation techniques try to conceal the downloads. Also the site containing the fake word online  download plugin page contains all the malware files as well. I haven’t found the 1.htm on any other site yet today.

The way these work is the original .js file looks like

take the first site in the array ( var x ), add counter/? and the long string in var m and you end up with a link looking like

http://forum-turism.org.ro/images/layout/counter/?TWnaW0EIEh4cnkuSfUPz0wQADjBNRhs6xpdLiR9XfGwhyuyYyCE1hXEnnetTee5i5AUEB5UJFwRbuuJtkhC8G3YhUoDi9e3vQb9Y5d91AhAJuYq4pZNhrLauptf99GwBCu7FOEsdqBo5fhXcs06jnRUEIGe4NGaXgUgZ3tMzibex8Zw82jhxc88Q  where you get a heavily encoded /obfuscated javascript / txt  file looking like this

Which is relatively easy to de-obfuscate by replacing the string from var m with the letter a getting this

That is then further de-obfuscated by deleting all examples of  ‘;NXmef+=’ giving the working download script

that starts with the first site in the array ( var ll) and then  downloads these ( if the first site cannot be contacted or the file is missing, it moves on to next site and so on, eventually giving 3 malware files.

/counter/exe1.exe  ( mole ransomware)   VirusTotal  | /counter/exe2.exe delivers kovter / powerliks   VirusTotal  | /counter/exe3.exe    VirusTotal  | VirusTotal  ( first one possibly corrupt or only partially downloaded  ) Payload Security shows a restatements.dll dropped VirusTotal

Today’s sites are

forum-turism.org.ro/images/layout
boorsemsport.be/templates/yoo_aurora/less/uikit
eurostandard.ro/pics/size1
alita.kz/tmp/installation/language/cs-CZ
sportbelijning.be/libraries/joomla/application/web
tramplinonline.ru

All these malicious emails are either designed to steal your Passwords, Bank, PayPal or other financial details along with your email or FTP ( web space) log in credentials. Or they are Ransomware versions that encrypt your files and demand large sums of money to recover the files.

  All the alleged senders, amounts, reference numbers, Bank codes, companies, names of employees, employee positions, email addresses and phone numbers mentioned in the emails are all random. Some of these companies will exist and some won’t. Don’t try to respond by phone or email, all you will do is end up with an innocent person or company who have had their details spoofed and picked at random from a long list that the bad guys have previously found.

The bad guys choose companies, Government departments and organisations with subjects that are designed to entice you or alarm you into blindly opening the attachment or clicking the link in the email to see what is happening.

Please read our How to protect yourselves page for simple, sensible advice on how to avoid being infected by this sort of socially engineered malware.

There are frequently dozens or even hundreds of different download locations, sometimes delivering the exactly same malware from all locations and sometimes slightly different malware versions from each one. Dridex, Locky and many other malwares do update at frequent intervals during the day, sometimes as quickly as every hour, so you might get a different version of these nasty Ransomware or Banking password stealer Trojans to the version we list here.

Be very careful with email attachments. All of these emails use Social engineering tricks to persuade you to open the attachments that come with the email. Whether it is a message saying “look at this picture of me I took last night” and it appears to come from a friend or is more targeted at somebody who regularly is likely to receive PDF attachments or Word .doc attachments or any other common file that you use every day.

The basic rule is NEVER open any attachment to an email, unless you are expecting it. Now that is very easy to say but quite hard to put into practice, because we all get emails with files attached to them. Our friends and family love to send us pictures of them doing silly things, or even cute pictures of the children or pets.

Never just blindly click on the file in your email program. Always save the file to your downloads folder, so you can check it first. Many malicious files that are attached to emails will have a faked extension. That is the 3 letters at the end of the file name. Unfortunately windows by default hides the file extensions so you need to Set your folder options to “show known file types. Then when you unzip the zip file that is supposed to contain the pictures of “Sally’s dog catching a ball” or a report in word document format that work has supposedly sent you to finish working on at the weekend, or an invoice or order confirmation from some company, you can easily see if it is a picture or document & not a malicious program.

If you see .JS or .EXE or .COM or .PIF or .SCR or .HTA .vbs, .wsf , .jse .jar at the end of the file name DO NOT click on it or try to open it, it will infect you.

While the malicious program is inside the zip file, it cannot harm you or automatically run. When it is just sitting unzipped in your downloads folder it won’t infect you, provided you don’t click it to run it. Just delete the zip and any extracted file and everything will be OK. You can always run a scan with your antivirus to be sure. There are some zip files that can be configured by the bad guys to automatically run the malware file when you double click the zip to extract the file. If you right click any suspicious zip file received, and select extract here or extract to folder ( after saving the zip to a folder on the computer) that risk is virtually eliminated. Never attempt to open a zip directly from your email, that is a guaranteed way to get infected. The best way is to just delete the unexpected zip and not risk any infection.

 

SPAM Campaign Underway that uses Encrypted Word Docs to Install Ursnif

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A large SPAM campaign is underway where victims receive an email that pretends to be a requested invoice and contains a password for a password protected encrypted Word document attachment. These password protected word documents contain embedded VBScript files that will download and install the Ursnif keylogger.

When Word documents are password protected, they also become encrypted. Malware distributors are hoping that by sending these encrypted Word documents they will be harder to detect by security software. You can see an example of one of the malicious SPAM emails that was provided to me by Zenexer.

Read More. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/spam-campaign-underway-that-uses-encrypted-word-docs-to-install-ursnif/

 

 

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