Both the FBI and Internet security companies have announced this week that there are a fake email from the FBI and a fake email from the CIA going around which are really being sent by the Sober worm. They include an attachment, which is of course the worm, and so if you get this fake email from the FBI or the CIA, don’t open it!
So far the text of the email seems to be fairly consistent, with the primary variation being whether the email appears to be email from the FBI, or email from the CIA. In both cases, at least so far, it contains the same name of the supposed sender, “Steven Allison”.
The email reads:
“Dear Sir/Madam,
We have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites.
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Important: Please answer our questions! The list of questions are attached.
Yours faithfully,
Steven Allison
Federal Bureau of Investigation-FBI-
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW , Room 3220
Washington , DC 20535
Phone: (202) 324-30000″
Said Graham Cluely of Sophos, “This variant of the Sober worm may catch out the unwary as they open their email inbox this morning. Every law-abiding citizen wants to help the police with their enquiries, and some will panic that they might be being falsely accused of visiting illegal websites and want click on the unsolicited email attachment. All users should be reminded to follow safe computing guidelines, and PCs should be kept automatically updated with the latest anti-virus protection. Anyone who may have information about the Sober worm’s author should report it to the computer crime authorities. This malware writer has been maliciously attacking innocent computer users for over two years, and must be stopped.”
The FBI has requested that anyone who receives this email report it to the FBI. You can [Page no longer available – we have linked to the archive.org version instead].
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never, seven times never, open e-mail links from strangers claiming to be from official agencies. look up their number in the phone book and contact the real agency. in particular the c.i.a. does not contact citizens by e-mail, they are not a law enforcement agency. if the f.b.i. has business with you they will send someone around to “knock and talk” with you in person, not by e-mail.
“gunner”
I have just been sent this kind of email allegedly from CIA.. I panicked and clicked on the attachment. I think my pc is infected now. how do i remove the virus?
If there was EVER a time to be concerned about Online Privacy, this is it. Use a privacy service like Ultimate Anonymity ( Ultimate-Anonymity.com ) for Anonymous Web Surfing. Using a service like this, you throw a false IP address to the sebsites you click on so if someone does “trap” the IP address, they are chasing ghosts!
John Jenkins
MCSE
dsadas
I’ve recieved tons of these in the last twenty-four hours,it’s the worst load i’ve ever recieved. Hope they catch this guy!
The saddest part, of course, is that this is not the first time this worm has gone around. Though the name of the sender and a couple other details have changed, the wording is nearly the same as in this entry on Snopes from *February*!
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/fbi.asp
And really, a bit of common sense would be nice… would the FBI *really* send its questionnaires out in the form of a Windows-only executable?