Computer "Tip of the Day 09-30-09"

- IMPORTANT - IMPORTANT - IMPORTANT - IMPORTANT - IMPORTANT -

--US-CERT Warns of Spam Pretending to be From IRS (September 25 & 28, 2009) The US Computer Emergency Readiness team (US-CERT) has issued an alert warning of a spam attack in which the messages are spoofed to appear to come from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regarding underreported income. The messages encourage the recipients to open an attachment or click on a link to view their tax statement, but the attachment contains malware and the link leads to a malicious website. The IRS warns people not to open attachments in emails claiming to be from the agency. The malware used in this attack is the Zeus Trojan horse program, which is difficult to detect. Zeus is used to help cyber criminals steal money from bank accounts.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9138527/IRS_scam_now_world_s_biggest_e_mail_virus_problem?source=CTWNLE_nlt_dailyam_2009-09-28
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/09/irs_scam_e-mail_could_be_costl.html
http://www.us-cert.gov/current/#malicious_code_spreading_via_irs