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Malicious Email Contains Virus Infection & Appears to Come From BBB

10/24/2008

Contact: Patty Fruehling
Better Business Bureau of Greater Kansas City

Kansas City, MO – BBB warns businesses about a malicious spam email that appears to come from the Better Business Bureau which contains a virus.

The spam contains a spoofed 'From' address making it appear as if the message was sent by the Better Business Bureau. The message uses social engineering tactics to entice readers to follow a link in the message in order to "register new software and update contact information."

Websense, a BBB Accredited Business who provides web security services out of San Diego, CA, discovered the virus yesterday afternoon after tens of thousands of the messages were received by their office. Websense indicated the malicious email appears to have been created by the same group that has been spamming malicious attacks targeting customers of Bank of America, Wachovia, Royal Bank and others.

Clicking on the link takes the victim to a page which looks like the BBB site. The site stresses that a digital certificate should be used while browsing the BBB site. It then provides a prompt to download a file called "TrustedBBBCertificate.exe" which is actually a Trojan Downloader (SHA-1 dcefc1fb912d7bb536de3e66d9c5c6c8465f0790).

When this file is executed, it takes the victim to another Web page, which is hosted on another malicious domain, for the "Certificate Registration". This secondary site also tries to get the victim to download "TrustedBBBCertificate.exe".

BBB advises businesses this email was NOT sent by any Better Business Bureau. BBB suggests ensuring your anti-virus and anti-spyware programs are up to date. If you are looking for a reputable computer service company that can assist you with virus and spyware services please visit our website at www.kansascity.bbb.org and click on E-Quote. This is a free service that will instantly put you in touch with BBB Accredited businesses you can trust.

About BBB
The BBB of Kansas City, MO was founded in 1916, as a non-profit Kansas City organization serving 45 counties in the Kansas City Metro area. The first BBB was founded in 1912. Today, BBB's serve communities across the U.S. and Canada.

Serving as the 'ethical gatepost' of our communities, BBB fosters and promotes ethical business practices and self-regulation standards that build consumer trust in the marketplace. BBB services include business reliability information, complaint resolution services and consumer and business educational information. For further information about the BBB , our Charity Review and the BBB Foundation you may contact us at www.kansascity.bbb.org. or call us (816) 421-7800.