Fake Microsoft Outlook update contains virus for ID theft

[The Computer Wizard]

"Spam email purporting to be a "critical update" for Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express contains a link to download a malicious program that can steal personal information from a user's computer, including login credentials and credit card information, Trend Micro reported Monday.

The spammers use legitimate links to Microsoft sites in the email body to make the email appear genuine, but a link appearing to direct users to a Microsoft site for the "update" actually downloads a Trojan horse called ZBot.

ZBot accesses a website to download information directing the virus to monitor certain websites and where to send stolen data, the security firm's blog said.

Web security researchers discovered that the Trojan monitors websites of banking institutions and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. If a user accesses any of these website, the Trojan logs keystrokes to steal the user's passwords and other sensitive information such as credit card numbers.

Recently, phishing emails have been circulating that appear to come from Microsoft and ask recipients to reconfigure their Outlook account by clicking on a link to a website where users are asked to fill in their account information, including their mail server address."

from Spam News
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Ken Edwards
The Computer Wizard
www.PersonalComputerWizard.com
707-318-2258

[Tars]

If you don't have to use MS Outlook, it's highly recomended that you don't. Because Windows is so widely installed, it's hard NOT to have Outlook automatically installed in any Windows installation. And unless you specifically tell Windows otherwise, Outlook is set as the default email client.

Because it's so "popular", Outlook is a target for virus authors.

Unless you have an Outlook-centric program - PIM customer contract program, or email list software, for example, there are better alternatives to Outlook. Here's a great one, and it's FREE!:

Mozilla Thunderbird 2 (6.4MB)

Thunderbird Features

Add to that - Thunderbird, and Firebird (Mozilla's FREE web browser) are so easy to install, you won't need to hire a computer "wizard" (who may use their posts here as a pretext to SPAM us to advertise their business).

Firefox 3 (7.1MB)