The Federal Trade Commission’s name is being used these days by a bogus email scheme designed to trick users into visiting an infected website. The email references a complaint filed with the FTC against the recipient and the email attachment tries to download a virus. The FTC warns users not to clink on links within the email and not to open any attachments.
The spoof email includes a phony sender’s address, making it appear the email is from “frauddep@ftc.gov” and also spoofs the return-path and reply-to fields to hide the email’s true origin. While the email includes the FTC seal, it has grammatical errors, misspellings, and incorrect syntax. Recipients should forward the email to spam@uce.gov and then delete it. Emails sent to that address are kept in the FTC’s spam database to assist with investigations.
Simply opening the email does not appear to cause harm. However, it is likely that anyone who has opened the email’s attachment or clicked on the links has downloaded the virus on their computer, and should run an anti-virus program. The virus appears to install a “key logger” that could potentially grab passwords and account numbers. More information about bogus emails, phishing, and virus protection is available at www.OnGuardOnline.gov.
The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to more than 1,600 civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.
