23 November 2018
We have received information on a malware making the rounds in town and probably further afield. The malware gets distributed through a PDF file attached to emails who pretend to be a business enquiry and there is some effort put into it to trick you to look into it.
The example you can see below came from a car dealership business in Christchurch and the email was from a “customer” wanting information on purchasing a vehicle. The PDF mimics a scanned document file.
Opening the PDF appears to be safe, but clicking on the links embedded in the document is not – they lead to URLs that once opened will trigger the malware.
These kind of links are really difficult to pick up by the security software as the links and URLs get changed frequently and subsequently the signature of the documents will be modified as well.
As always – it pays to double check the email of the sender and look for all the usual warning signs. Hoover over the links before you click – any suspicious domain names, file names that do not match the display text or the content of the PDF, file extensions you do not recognise… do not click on them.
All the Adobe logos added for good measure to the documents, shouldn’t raise your confidence in the document either.
In short,
- Be vigilant, do not click if you have the slightest suspicion.
- Make sure forward the email to us/your IT provider to investigate further.
- Don’t forget to send a separate email your team to alert them.
Here is how the PDF file may look.
