Users and anti-virus companies are reporting a big number of spam messages, which contain fake invoices. The senders aren’t out for your money, but they’re interested in infecting machine. The invoices are fake, and opening the files can or will infect your machine.
Word documents
There’s a few ways to detect these fake, virus-ridden invoices right off the bat – so keep them in mind.
- Word documents: If the attachment is a Word document, don’t open it under any circumstance. No self-respecting company would send you an invoice using an editable document format like a Word document. The reason they’re sending these word documents is that they contain Macro’s which are run on opening the document, to infect your machine.
- You didn’t order anything: This should be an obvious give-away; if you didn’t order anything you’re not supposed to get an invoice. Most self-respecting vendors allow you to lookup your invoices on their sales platform, anyway.
- Your anti-virus kicks it in the ass: If you’ve got a decent anti-virus solution which includes e-mail scanning, such as Gdata’s Internet Security solution, you won’t even get to see the mail – or the attachment – as they’re taken care of before they reach your inbox.
Of course, there are exceptions to the first rule. PDF’s which trigger malicious code are also on the rise. So, the golden rule is “If you didn’t order anything, don’t open that invoice.”
Be safe, kids. It’s a dark place out there.
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