Airline ticket receipt scam spreads malware

Malware authors are sending out booby-trapped emails disguised as electronic ticket receipts.

Trojan horse malware buried in messages ostensibly from United Airlines circulating this week follow a similar attack featuring emails purporting to come from Northwest Airlines last week. In both cases the messages come form spoofed email addresses and feature zip attachments, typically called Your_ETicket.zip, loaded with Trojan horse malware, such as the Agent-IPS Trojan.

The trick is designed to panic the unwary into opening maliciously-constructed email in the mistaken belief that their credit card has been fraudulently used to purchase a travel ticket. If that really were the case, hackers would doubtless make sure that email confirmations would not end up in the inbox of victims of fraud.

Net security firm Sophos has screenshots of the malicious email in write-ups of the UA attack (here) and Northwest Airlines assault (here).

The tactic itself first made an appearance last year. Sophos has made a video of an assault in action which can be viewed here. ®