The ever-popular Sober worm is making the rounds again in a new and exciting format. The ugly little worm is circulating through email and it looks all nice and official because someone is receiving email from either the FBI or the CIA. Many may ask what they’ve done wrong to warrant attention from the FBI or CIA. Nothing much really you just happen to have an email account.
The message on the CIA’s website reads:
Some members of the public have in the past few days received a bogus e-mail falsely attributed to CIA’s Office of Public Affairs. CIA did not send that message. In fact, it does not send unsolicited e-mail to the general public, period. If you have gotten such a message, we strongly encourage you not to open the attachment, which contains a destructive virus.
SecurityProNews did a story on the FBI email yesterday. It seems some individuals felt particularly testosterone laden and elected to choose not only the FBI, but also the CIA for their malicious endeavors.
Like the FBI emails, the CIA emails look official, coming from addresses tagged with cia.gov. They will tell users to fill out the form attached. When users open the attachment, it turns out to be the virus. The email says the user has been visiting illegal websites and the CIA/FBI knows about it (not entirely implausible) and that the user should answer the attached questions.
One might question the sanity of those spreading such maliciousness using the name of the FBI or the CIA. They might think they really won’t get caught. Chances are though, this is just an odd form of job application.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
