Spammers are sly. So it’s no wonder they take advantage of popular brands’ reputations to pull one over on the consumer. This past week saw two spam attacks in which e-mails appeared to be from legitimate brands.
The malicious e-mails – one pretending to be from American Airlines and another appearing to originate from The New York Times – were actually spam messages sent with malware attachments.
According to MessageLabs, an anti-spam company, one set of e-mails appeared to be from the “Times Reader” service. The messages displayed a promo for “Times Reader 2.0” software and solicited the reader to click on the attachment, which triggered viral malware.
The American Airlines spam e-mail pretended to come from the AAdvantage loyalty program, according to the airline. The malicious message offered consumers free miles and coupons in exchange for booking a first-class or business-class ticket. The message asked recipients to click on links to a malware site.
Despite receiving an e-mail from a familiar brand, consumers should always be aware of the sender and check if links are really for the domains they claim to be from.
