Imagine traveling over the holidays to see friends or family, and your flight is delayed or, worse, cancelled. Or traveling to a business meeting, and because of a flight delay, you miss your connection. Now imagine a service that, for only $19, will alert you of the upcoming delay or cancellation, and that will automatically find you alternate flights, and book them for you at no extra cost to you, all from the privacy and hassle-free convenience of your smartphone. No standing in lines, no calling around to other airlines, no waiting on hold, no having to frantically surf travel sites. Sound too good to be true? Well, it’s not – it’s a service called Freebird.

A brand new scam, trying to get you to download malware, has just hit the Internet. “The ACH transaction recently sent from your checking account (by you or any other person), was canceled by the Electronic Payments Association” says the spam in which it is contained. There is a link to a file that you are supposed to download to “see the details of the report”. Don’t download that file! The file name format is “report_FakeTransaction#.pdf.exe” so, for example, report_33047451352379.pdf.exe. So far the scam mail has pretended to come from NACHA.org, although they are actually coming through an ISP in the Ukraine (ukrtel.net). ACH, by the way, stands for Automated Clearing House, which is a system that processes electronic banking transactions.

Not content with sending fake Amazon confirmation emails, the outfit sending out the Canadian pharmacy spam is now sending out fake Amazon.com order cancellation emails, too, claiming that your Amazon order has been cancelled. “Amazon.com – Your Cancellation (0046-68878-96071)” says the email’s subject (although the “order number” may change) – but of course the link to check “ORDER INFORMATION” really takes you to a Canadian pharmacy spam site, hawking Viagra, Cialis and the like. In the example below, the fake cancellation contains links to https://www.theinternetpatrol.com/brick-wall/, which redirects to https://web.archive.org/web/20211230152715/http://weightbreezy.com/, which is a Canadian pharmacy spam site.