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Red Condor Warns of IRS Underreported Income Notice Spam
ROHNERT PARK, CA, Mar 24, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) --
Email security experts at Red Condor have issued a warning for a
new blended email threat that once again spoofs the Internal Revenue
Service. The text-based email, which has a variety of subject lines,
such as "the CP2000 notice (Underreported Income Notice)," is asking
recipients to "review your tax statement on Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) website." When someone clicks on the link, they are taken to a
landing page that includes the IRS header, as well as a link to the
IRS Privacy Policy. On the landing page, visitors are asked to
"Please review (download and execute) your tax statement." The link
on the page actually installs a version of the Zbot Trojan, which
hides itself on compromised computers and allows remote attackers to
steal bank-related information, log-in details and other personal
data. This campaign is being sent from a botnet, has a moderate to
high volume, and more than 2,000 unique sending IP addresses. A
similar campaign was blocked in the fall of 2009.
"Given its familiarity with so many people, the IRS is a common
target, especially during this time of the year as consumers and
businesses are getting ready for tax season," said Dr. Tom Steding,
president and CEO of Red Condor. "In addition, many people fear the
IRS, and an email with the subject line containing underreported
income does catch people's attention. Unfortunately, because the
email appears to come from the federal government, they may be more
likely to follow the instructions in the email. And it doesn't take
very many people clicking on the links for the spammers to profit
from the campaign."
As with past IRS spam warnings, the IRS has made it very clear that
it does not communicate with individual taxpayers via email, so any
email with the IRS' brand on it is likely going to be a scam and
should be forwarded to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov and then deleted.
This campaign was detected by Red Condor's Spam Trigger filter, which
quickly identifies spam and phishing campaigns before they penetrate
users' networks. Once identified, the campaigns are quarantined and
reviewed as rules are written and automatically distributed to Red
Condor's antispam appliance and Hosted Service customers.
About Red Condor
Red Condor is revolutionizing spam fighting with its next generation
technology. Red Condor's highly accurate email filter, hybrid
architecture Vx Technology(TM), and fully managed appliances lead to
a dramatic reduction in the cost of owning a premium spam filter.
With solutions for small businesses, as well as ISPs with millions of
email inboxes, Red Condor has a cost-effective, timesaving solution
that is rapidly gaining market share. The system's design has
built-in zero tolerance for lost email, and a near zero false
positive rate while achieving long-term spam block rates greater than
99%. Red Condor Archive is a secure message archiving service with
lifetime retention and unlimited storage. The company's
next-generation technology is backed by a 24x7 customer care center
staffed by email security experts at Red Condor's headquarters. For
more information, visit www.redcondor.com.
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Media Contact:
Kevin Wilson, Email Contact, 513-898-1008
SOURCE: Red Condor, Inc.
http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/emailprcntct?id=F19330B11BC25E15
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