Malware through alleged email invoices from supposedly known senders
As the Baden-Württemberg State Criminal Police Office reports, an increased volume of alleged invoices sent electronically is currently being recorded.
The danger comes from the Word documents contained in email attachments.
In some cases, the perpetrators also claim to change the billing address or bank details and also refer to a Word document attached.
The perpetrators use technical means to forge the sender email address and impersonate known senders in order to lull the recipient into security.
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the file in the attachment, often referred to as “ Invoice.doc ”, starts the word processing program installed on the computer.
This then usually opens a dialog window indicating that so-called “macros” are contained in the document. Macro functions are not activated by default in newer versions of Office programs for security reasons.
The program asks the user whether macros should be activated manually and also points out the security risk.
The email authors take advantage of the carelessness of many users when dealing with Word documents and encourage the recipients to activate the macros. In this case, this leads to the execution of program codes contained in the Word document.
Malware is downloaded to the computer in question via the Internet and started automatically.
To protect yourself from such attacks on your computer systems, the Baden-Württemberg State Criminal Police Office advises:
- Be extremely careful when handling Word documents that are sent to you as email attachments. This also applies if the sender address is known.
- If you do open such an attachment, be sure not to activate “macros” in your word processing program, even if you are asked to do so.
- Older versions of Office automatically activate “macros” within documents. Therefore, be sure to deactivate the automatic activation of macros in the program settings.
- If, despite all caution, you become infected with malware, disconnect the computer from the network immediately.
- Check your computer system regularly with up-to-date anti-virus software. Create regular backups and store them on external systems.
If malware has been introduced into your computer system, you as the affected company or authority can report it to the Central Cybercrime Contact Point (ZAC).
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