Philippine Email Users Warned Against Downloading Attachments Claiming to be Financial Documents

PASIG CITY, Philippines - July 14, 2015 - PRLog -- A global spam campaign spreading the banking Trojan "Dyre" hit users' email inboxes worldwide recently. This was after 19,000 malicious emails were sent in three days from spam servers in the US, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Denmark, Russia, China, South Korea, UK, Australia and several other areas, according to Bitdefender Labs.

Thousands of people were invited to download an archive containing a malicious .exe file claiming to come from a tax consultant. Posing as a follow-up email, the message asks users to urgently download the attached archive and provide information to complete a financial transaction. A very similar email – from the second day of the blast – pretends to attach financial documentation and asks the user to verify its authenticity. A third email warns the recipient of penalties imposed on his company and invites him to see “the administrative determination.”

Dyre installs itself on the user’s computer and becomes active only when the user enters credentials on a specific site, usually the login page of a banking institution or financial service. through a man-in-the-browser attack, Hackers inject malicious Javascript code through a man-in-the-browser attack, allowing them to steal credentials and further manipulate accounts– all completely covertly.

Bitdefender malware researchers have bypassed encrypted communications with the C&C server to uncover the list of targeted websites. Customers of reputable financial and banking institutions from the US, UK, Germany, Denmark, Australia, Romania and France have been targeted.

[US] Clients of Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase and PayPal may have been exposed to theft.

[UK] Customers of Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Santander have been targeted by hackers.

[Germany] Deutsche Bank, Valovis Bank and volkswagenbank.de customers may have had credentials and money stolen from their accounts.

[Australia] Hackers went after clients of the Bank of Melbourne and local units of ING, Citibank and HSBC.

Filipinos are warned to take caution and to be wary of similar spam campaigns to avoid banking credentials being stolen and financial accounts being compromised.

Bitdefender, which detects and blocks the threat, reminds users to avoid clicking links in e-mails from unknown e-mail addresses and to keep their anti-malware solution up to date with the latest virus definitions.

Related Links:

Bitdefender is distributed in the Philippines by IPSYSTEMS Inc (www.ipsystems.ph). Email us at info(at)ipsystems.ph or call (+632) 638 3264 for more information on securing and protecting important business data and information.

Visit Bitdefender at www.bitdefender.com for additional information on its different antivirus solutions for businesses of all sizes.