The malware gang spreading locky are really taking the mickey today. They just haven’t stopped spamming out new emails delivering Locky. The next in this never ending series of Locky downloaders is an email with the subject of  Your Amazon.com order has dispatched (#324-3101580-5413719) [ random numbers] pretending to come from Amazon.com <auto-shipping6@amazon.com>

They use email addresses and subjects that will entice a user to read the email and open the attachment. A very high proportion are being targeted at small and medium size businesses, with the hope of getting a better response than they do from consumers.

The js file inside the zip and the downloaded Locky file are identical to this slightly earlier malspam run

They use email addresses and subjects that will entice a user to read the email and open the attachment. A very high proportion are being targeted at small and medium size businesses, with the hope of getting a better response than they do from consumers.

Amazon.com has not been hacked or had their email or other servers compromised. They are not sending the emails to you. They are just innocent victims in exactly the same way as every recipient of these emails

One of the  emails looks like:

From: Amazon.com <auto-shipping6@amazon.com>

Date: Thu 01/09/2016 19:22

Subject: Your Amazon.com order has dispatched (#324-3101580-5413719)

Attachment: ORDER-324-3101580-5413719.zip

Body content:

Dear Customer,

Greetings from Amazon.com,

We are writing to let you know that the following item has been sent using DHL Express.

For more information about delivery estimates and any open orders, please visit: http://www.amazon.com/your-account

Your order #324-3101580-5413719 (received November 8, 2016)

Your right to cancel:

At Amazon.com we want you to be delighted every time you shop with us. O=

ccasionally though, we know you may want to return items. Read more about o=

ur Returns Policy at: http://www.amazon.com/returns-policy/

Further, under the United Kingdom’s Distance Selling Regulations, you have =

the right to cancel the contract for the purchase of any of these items wit=

hin a period of 7 working days, beginning with the day after the day on whi=

ch the item is delivered. This applies to all of our products. However, we =

regret that we cannot accept cancellations of contracts for the purchase of=

video, DVD, audio, video games and software products where the item has be=

en unsealed. Please note that we are unable to accept cancellation of, or r=

eturns for, digital items once downloading has commenced. Otherwise, we can=

accept returns of complete product, which is unused and in an “as new” con=

dition.

Our Returns Support Centre will guide you through our Returns Policy and, w=

here relevant, provide you with a printable personalised return label. Ple=

ase go to http://www.amazon.com/returns-support to use our Returns Suppor=

t Centre.

To cancel this contract, please pack the relevant item securely, attach you=

r personalised return label and send it to us with the delivery slip so tha=

t we receive it within 7 working days after the day of the date that the it=

em was delivered to you or, in the case of large items delivered by our spe=

cialist couriers, contact Amazon.com customer services using the link bel=

ow within 7 working days after the date that the item was delivered to you =

to discuss the return.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/css/returns/homepage.html

For your protection, where you are returning an item to us, we recommend th=

at you use a recorded-delivery service. Please note that you will be respon=

sible for the costs of returning the goods to us unless we delivered the it=

em to you in error or the item is faulty. If we do not receive the item bac=

k from you, we may arrange for collection of the item from your residence a=

t your cost. You should be aware that, once we begin the delivery process, =

you will not be able to cancel any contract you have with us for services c=

arried out by us (e.g. gift wrapping).

Please also note that you will be responsible for the costs of collection i=

n the event that our specialist courier service collect a large item from y=

ou to return to us.

As soon as we receive notice of your cancellation of this order, we will re=

fund the relevant part of the purchase price for that item.=20

Should you have any questions, feel free to visit our online Help Desk at:=

=20

http://www.amazon.com/help

 

If you’ve explored the above links but still need to get in touch with us, =

you will find more contact details at the online Help Desk.=20

 

Note: this e-mail was sent from a notification-only e-mail address that can=

not accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.=20

 

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com

 

————————————————-

Amazon EU S.=C3=A0.r.L.

c/o Marston Gate

Ridgmont, BEDFORD MK43 0XP

United Kingdom

————————————————-

Screenshot: NONE

These malicious attachments normally have a password stealing component, with the aim of stealing your bank, PayPal or other financial details along with your email or FTP ( web space) log in credentials. Many of them are also designed to specifically steal your Facebook and other social network log in details. A very high proportion are Ransomware versions that encrypt your files and demand money ( about £350/$400) to recover the files.

  All the alleged senders, amounts, reference numbers, Bank codes, companies, names of employees, employee positions, email addresses and phone numbers mentioned in the emails are all random. Some of these companies will exist and some won’t.  Don’t try to respond by phone or email, all you will do is end up with an innocent person or company who have had their details spoofed and picked at random from a long list that the bad guys have previously found. The bad guys choose companies, Government departments and organisations  with subjects that are designed to entice you or alarm you into blindly opening the attachment or clicking the link in the email to see what is happening.  

Please read our How to protect yourselves page for simple, sensible advice on how to avoid being infected by this sort of socially engineered malware.

Previous campaigns over the last few weeks have delivered numerous different download sites and malware versions. There are frequently 5 or 6 and even up to 150  download locations on some days, sometimes delivering the exactly same malware from all locations and sometimes slightly different malware versions. Dridex /Locky does update at frequent intervals during the day, sometimes as quickly as every hour, so you might get a different version of these nasty Ransomware or  Banking password stealer Trojans.

This is another one of the  files that unless you have “show known file extensions enabled“, can easily be mistaken for  a genuine  DOC / PDF / JPG or other common file instead of the .EXE / .JS file it really is, so making it much more likely for you to accidentally open it and be infected.

 Be very careful with email attachments. All of these emails use Social engineering tricks to persuade you to open the attachments that come with the email. Whether it is a message saying “look at this picture of me I took last night” and it appears to come from a friend or is more targeted at somebody who regularly is likely to receive PDF attachments or Word .doc attachments or any other common file that you use every day.

The basic rule is NEVER open any attachment to an email, unless you are expecting it. Now that is very easy to say but quite hard to put into practice, because we all get emails with files attached to them. Our friends and family  love to send us pictures of them doing silly things, or even cute pictures of the children or pets.

Never just blindly click on the file in your email program. Always save the file to your downloads folder, so you can check it first. Many malicious files that are attached to emails will have a faked extension. That is the 3 letters at the end of the file name. Unfortunately windows by default hides the file extensions so you need to Set your folder options to “show known file types. Then when you unzip the zip file that is supposed to contain the pictures of “Sally’s dog catching a ball” or a report in word document format that work has supposedly sent you to finish working on at the weekend, or an invoice or order confirmation from some company,  you can easily see if it is a picture or document & not a malicious program.

If you see .JS or .EXE or .COM or .PIF or .SCR or .HTA .vbs, .wsf , .jse  .jar at the end of the file name DO NOT click on it or try to open it, it will infect you.

While the malicious program is inside the zip file, it cannot harm you or automatically run. When it is just sitting unzipped in your downloads folder it won’t infect you, provided you don’t click it to run it. Just delete the zip and any extracted file and everything will be OK. You can always run a scan with your antivirus to be sure. There are some zip files that can be configured by the bad guys to automatically run the malware file when you double click the zip to extract the file. If you right click any suspicious zip file received, and select extract here or extract to folder ( after saving the zip to a folder on the computer) that risk is virtually eliminated. Never attempt to open a zip directly from your email, that is a guaranteed way to get infected. The best way is to just delete the unexpected zip and not risk any infection.

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