Scam of the Month: Emotet Returns from Summer Vacation
Emotet, a powerful banking trojan, is back after a summer hiatus. Emotet is known for installing information stealers, email harvesters, and ransomware. Emotet took a breather at the beginning of June 2019. However, as of mid-September, Emotet has resumed spamming operations once again.
Emotet’s most devious email-based attack method accesses old email messages in a victim’s inbox and replies to them, thus jumping into the middle of an existing email conversation. When it replies, it sends along a malicious attachment to infect a new computer. Once it infects a computer, it quickly spreads to other computers on the network, steals credentials, installs malware or ransomware, and begins spamming the user’s contact list.
To protect against Emotet, you should employ strong passwords and opt-in to multi-factor authentication. You should also be wary of emails that seem to be unexpected replies to old threads, emails that seem out of context, or those messages that come from familiar names but unfamiliar email addresses. To learn more about how to protect your organization, please visit /cyberdefense.
Stop, Look, and Think.
Don’t be fooled.
