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Presumed iTunes Gift Certificate Contains Malware

E-mail with subject line 'iTunes Gift Certificate' promises $50 gift certificate

Nov 22, 2011 | 04:19 PM | 


Berlin, November 22, 2011 – The eleven Research Team has issued a warning against e-mails which promise a gift certificate for the popular Apple online music service iTunes. The e-mails have the subject line „iTunes Gift Certificate“ and promise a 50 dollar discount for everyone shopping at the iTunes Store using the code which is allegedly contained in the attachment. This, however, consists of a Zip file which contains executable files that install themselves into two separate Windows folders and which are activated with every Windows start. The malware is most likely a Trojan which opens a connection to a remote server from which it awaits further orders. From there it can download any kind of malware to the infected server.

The weeks before the holidays is a traditional time for spammer, phishers and malware distributors to exploit the interest in shopping bargains. This is particularly true for the days around Thanksgiving, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the biggest shopping days of the year in the United States.

eleven advises users to be particularly aware of potentially dangerous e-mails and recommends never to open attachments from unknown or not completely trustworthy senders.

eleven on Twitter: http://twitter.com/elevensecurity

eleven – E-mail security "Made in Germany"

eleven is a leading e-mail security provider based in Germany. Its unique eXpurgate technology offers a spam filter and e-mail categorization service that protects the user reliably against spam and phishing, detects potentially dangerous e-mail and can distinguish between individual messages and any kind of mass e-mail. eXpurgate also offers numerous virus protection options and a powerful e-mail firewall.

Over 45,000 companies of all sizes use eXpurgate to check and categorize more than a billion e-mail messages every day. Customers include Internet service providers and telecommunication carriers such as T-Online, O2, Vodafone and freenet as well as many well-known companies and public institutions, including Air Berlin, BMW, the Federal Association of German Banks, DATEV, the Free University of Berlin, Landesbank Berlin, RTL, ThyssenKrupp and Tobit Software AG. For more information, visit our website at: http://www.eleven.de.

Company contact:

eleven GmbH

Sascha Krieger

Hardenbergplatz 2

10623 Berlin

Germany

Tel.: +49 (0)30 / 52 00 56-0

E-Mail: presse@eleven.de

http://www.eleven.de



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