Notice of Potential Internet Security Threats

AES Broadcast  12/07/2011          Broadcast  #  2011059

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Notice of Potential Internet Security Threats
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The U. S. Bureau of the Census Computer Incident Response Team (BOC CIRT) has received alerts regarding malicious e-mail messages purporting to be from well known companies in the international trade community. These messages target computer users involved with export compliance and international shipping. The Census Bureau will track these alerts as BOC CIRT security incidents until remediation steps are taken.

Recent security incidents involve e-mails claiming to be from reputable companies asking users to open an attached file to fill out, sign, and return back to a mimicked company posing as the reputable company. These attached documents often contain a piece of malware known as a “keylogger” that records all of the keystrokes entered on the computer (including usernames and passwords) and sends them to a central database. This malware is considered a virus and could cause harm to your computer, if exposed.

Safe internet behavior is to open attachments that you expect to receive, and only from companies or people you know. You should also maintain up-to-date virus scanning and malware scanning tools on each computer that is used to connect to the Internet to access AESDirect, or for web browsing, e-mail, or any other Web-based tasks.

For further information or questions, contact the U.S. Census Bureau's AES Branch
Telephone: (800) 549-0595, select option 1 for AES
Email: askaes@census.gov
Foreign Trade Division Website
Global Reach Blog