A Philadelphia-area police department is warning locals about fake emails sent in its name to try and get people to install malware. The clever part: the emails contain accurate speeding data, targeting drivers whose GPS data is leaked to the scammers by shady apps.
It's suspected that the data is coming from an app with permission to track phone GPS data. That could either be a legitimate app that has been compromised, or a purpose-built malicious app that was uploaded online. As anyone who has used a GPS navigator knows, location data can be used to roughly calculate your travel speed. The emails ask for payment of the speeding ticket, but no apparatus is set up to receive such fines. Instead, a link that claims to lead to a photo of the user's license plate instead loads malware onto the user's device. This particular scam appears to be hyperlocal at the moment, however, it does show how these scams can progress. Like con artists, most of these scams rely on fooling users into thinking they're from a legitimate source.
An example email:
From: Speeding Citation
To: (Accurate Email Removed)
Date: 03/11/2016 03:08 PM
Subject: [External] Notification of excess speed
First Name: (Accurate Name removed)
Last Name: (Accurate Name removed)
Notification of excess speed
Route: (Accurate Local Township Road –removed)
Date: 8 March 2016
Time: 7:55 am
Speed Limit: 40
Detected Speed: 52
The Infraction Statement contains an image of your license plate and the citation which must be paid in 5 working days.
A month after a hospital in Hollywood was shut down by a ransomware infection that encrypted all the files on its computers and computer-controlled instruments and systems, another hospital, this one in Kentucky, has suffered a similar fate.
Since 2014, Suckfly, a hacker group apparently based in Chengdu, China, has used at least 9 signing certs to make their malware indistinguishable from official updates from the vendor.
At The Malware Musuem you can enjoy the experience of DOS-era viruses, trojans and other digital beasties without any of the risk. Many of them manifested as wild graphical tricks and other spectacular coding feats, distracting you as they formatted hard drives or corrupted files. The Malware Museum is a collection of malware programs, usually […]
When you’re in the mood to light up, there’s not much else you want to have to think about. Relaxation is the goal and thus, the focus, not remembering your last temperature or chastising yourself for not cleaning your vape well enough. You simply want to chill and let the pipe do all the work […]
In a world dominated by Instagram, SnapChat, and Facebook, it’s easy to think that technology comprises only the Internet. But of course, it’s more than that, also encompassing computer hardware we can tinker with using our own hands. The Mini Linux Computer certainly proves the point. This machine is certainly small. But pound for pound, […]
It’s been a long time since you saw your first drone. That flying black magic up in the sky that snaps incredible photos and videos that you can’t get enough of. And it was love at first sight, but until now you haven’t wanted to spend the money to get one. Well, hang onto your […]