Virus emails - speak of the devil
You’ll remember my last blog? You don’t? Well - better check it out - right here. The blog was a warning about the dangers of the Evil Phisherman - how to avoid being caught out by phishing emails. I promised you that the next blog would be about Email Viruses. Speak of the devil - just this morning, I received just such an email. And here it is - in all its evil glory
It looks pretty convincing - certainly at first glance. Everything is there that you’d expect. The NatWest branding and strapline, along with numerous references to security. In fact, it really is rather good, until … you look at it more closely. With just a little careful examination, familiar warning signs keep popping up.
Let’s look again -
Now let’s look at these danger signals in turn -
1 The domain name.
@natwestmessage.com. Let’s see what the WhoIs Lookup website says -
2 The attachment.
There’s something you need to know. Banks NEVER send an attachment when the content is confidential. Why’s that? Well - password cracking software is easy to download and to use. So, it would be easy for someone with malicious intent to access a password protected document.
3 No greeting.
Just as with phishing emails, discussed in the last blog, the lack of a personalised greeting is most odd and suspicious. A genuine email will always begin with Dear your name.
4 Bad Grammar.
Look at that comma. There’s a space between it and the preceding word. We all know that’s not right. Do you think NatWest would send out an email with a glaring mistake
like that? And it’s exactly the same with...
5 The expiry date.
Really? March 02, 2017? Nearly 13 months before the date of the email itself? I don’t think so!
I’m sure you’ve come to the same conclusion as me. This email is like corked wine. It should be avoided … or you might regret the consequences.
Keep a look out for the next blog from Addmonte, when you’ll read about why viruses are so dangerous. What is Virus-man trying to achieve?
Till the next time.