Ebola epidemic: fake emails from World Health Organization used by hackers to spread malware

Emails claiming to offer advice from the World Health Organization contain dangerous malware, says digital security group SpiderLabs

Hackers and spammers are trying to take advantage of the recent Ebola epidemic by sending unsuspecting computers users emails that appear to be from the World Health Organization (WHO).

The emails, which encourage users to open an attachment to find out how to protect themselves from the disease, downloads malware onto the victim’s computer that’s capable of capturing any information stored on the computer – and event taking over webcams and microphones.

Security group SpiderLabs published details of the spam, adding that they “don’t have reason to believe it is a widespread campaign” and that the emails are most likely “an attempt to infect random users in the hope of gaining some data that can be used or sold.”

However, they also added that variations of the scam had already been seen, with a similar malware-packed email sent to Mexican users that claims to be from Mexico’s government with advice about an ‘Ebola alert’ in the country.

In addition to these sorts of Trojan attacks, there’s also an unhealthy amount of Ebola-related spam, most of which is coming from a single bot that SpiderLabs have dubbed “Type 52”.

The bot is single-minded in its topical focus on the epidemic, but shows a fair bit of imagination in the range of click-bait email subjects it’s using to entice readers to click:

These include “What you need to know about the deadly Ebola outbreak”, “So Really, How Do You Get Ebola?”, “Is there ANY way to cure Ebola?” and “The #1 Food Items You'll Need In An EBOLA Crisis”.

So, the advice to computer users is: don’t look for any Ebola updates from your inbox and especially don’t open attachments claiming to have official updates on the disease. You might catch something nasty.