For Immediate Release
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
|
Washington D.C.
FBI National Press Office
(202) 324-3691
|
FBI
ALERTS PUBLIC TO RECENT E-MAIL SCHEME
E-mails
purporting to come from FBI are phony
Washington, D.C. - The
FBI is warning the public to avoid falling victim to an on-going mass e-mail
scheme wherein computer users received unsolicited e-mails purportedly sent
by the FBI. These scam e-mails tell the recipients that their Internet use
has been monitored by the FBI and that they have accessed illegal web sites.
The e-mails then direct recipients to open an attachment and answer questions.
The e-mail appears to
be sent from the e-mail addresses of mail@fbi.gov, post@fbi.gov and admin@fbi.gov.
There may be other similarly styled addresses. The recipient is enticed to
open the zip attachment which contains a variant of the w32/sober virus.
If the program within the zip attachment is executed then the virus is launched
and may affect the user's computer.
The text of the email
is as follows:
Dear Sir/Madam,
We have logged your IP-address
on more than 30 illegal Websites.
Important: Please answer
our questions! The list of questions are attached.
Yours faithfully,
Steven Allison
Federal Bureau of Investigation-FBI-
These e-mails did not
come from the FBI. Recipients of this or similar solicitations should know
that the FBI does not engage in the practice of sending unsolicited e-mails
to the public in this manner.
Opening e-mail attachments
from an unknown sender is a risky and dangerous endeavor as such attachments
frequently contain viruses that can infect the recipient's computer. The
FBI strongly encourages computer users not to open such attachments. For
detailed information on the effects of running this virus please log onto http://www.cert.org.
The FBI takes this matter
seriously and is investigating. Users are instructed to delete the e-mail
without opening it.
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