Phishers Use US-CERT Email Address as Bait

The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (simply known as US-CERT) is the latest bait phishers used to get users to install malware on user systems.

US-CERT is a highly esteemed and trusted body of security professionals who tackle cybersecurity issues in the United States. They also work with security vendors to address vulnerability issues. With such impressive credentials, it is possible that some private organizations, including federal, state, and local governments, might have fallen prey to this campaign since they appear to be the targets.

From the US-CERT website: "Reports indicate that SOC@US-CERT.GOV is the primary email address being spoofed but other invalid email addresses are also being used.

"The subject of the phishing email is: "Phishing incident report call number: PH000000XXXXXXX" with the "X" containing an incident report number that varies.

"The attached zip filed is titled "US-CERT Operation Center Report XXXXXXX.zip", with "X" indicating a random value or string. The zip attachment contains an executable file with the name "US-CERT Operation CENTER Reports.eml.exe", which is a variant of the Zeus/Zbot Trojan known as Ice-IX."

The complete report is found here.

Jovi Umawing