New Travel Hazard

Have you booked any airline travel recently? Don't be surprised to receive an email reminding you that your credit card has been charged for it. But here comes the catch:

Do not open the attachment that is likely to be accompanied with the message.

If you do, you would probably end up installing malicious code on your machine. The email will usually name a specific dollar amount that your credit card has supposedly been charged for air travel. It even offers you a login and password for the airline’s website, but what the bad guys want you to do is click on the attached “invoice and the airplane ticket.” The “invoice” is actually malicious code.

Spam messages are circulating from purportedly several major airlines. United Airlines is the latest airline that has been mentioned, with the following involved as well: Northwest Airlines, JetBlue, Midwest Airlines, and Sun Country Airlines.

Users are encouraged to follow best practices and not to click links in unsolicited email messages. Also, make sure your operating system is fully patched and your antivirus software is fully up-to-date in order to guard against this and other threats finding their way onto your computer.

Read here for more details.