Open This Malware or I’ll Sue You

NetworkWorld: Security experts report that hackers are trying a new social engineering technique to entice e-mail recipients to click on malicious links: they’re threatening to sue. In the latest scam, intended victims receive an e-mail accusing them of being spammers and threatening lawsuits if the spam doesn’t stop. The e-mail includes an attachment which the message says provides evidence of  wrongdoing–but really it’s an executable malware file.

Typical text from the e-mails reads: “Hello. Your email is sending spam messages! If you don’t stop sending spam, we will be impelled to sue you! We’ve attached a scanned copy of the document assembled by our security service to this letter. Please carefully read through the document and stop sending spam messages. This is the final warning!”