Tax Season – IBM Warns of Trickbot Malware

Published On April 10, 2019 | By Tom Huskerson | Tax Season

April 15th is almost here. Don’t let your down guard yet!

IBM recently reported detecting a wave of tax-themed phishing emails targeting both businesses and personal email addresses. The emails are delivering a trojan malware known as “Trickbot” that can steal bank account information from your Internet sessions.

Trickbot pretends to be emails from well-known payroll and human resource firms such as Paychex and ADP. Spam and phony emails are often peppered with spelling and grammatical errors and can be easy spotted if you are alert. But Trickbot tis different because it is generally free of spelling or grammar mistakes.

The messages also appear to come from legitimate looking email addresses such as “@adpnote.com” or “@paychex.mail.” But the domains are actually under the scammers’ control.

According to the IBM report, “The messages were quite simple, only claiming to contain an attachment of tax or billing records. To reinforce the illusion of legitimacy, the signatures of each of the emails mimic typical business signatures, including a name, job title and contact details, as well as mock email footers that the cyber criminals may have copied from legitimate business emails.”

Victims don’t realize they are loading the malware by clicking on the link. The malware is working in the background so most users probably won’t notice anything is wrong. However, once Trickbot is activated it can takeover your PC’s browser and re-direct you to phony banking web pages designed by scammers to steal your login information.

According to IBM Trickbot has been used to steal banking login credentials from victims but is capable ofother malicious acts. “If your computer is infected with Trickbot, the cyber criminals operating it have complete control and can do just about anything they wish on your device, including spreading to other computers on your network and emptying your company’s bank accounts, potentially costing millions of dollars.”

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About The Author

Tom Huskerson Bio Born in Richmond Virginia Tom Huskerson is a military veteran who settled in California after his discharge. Tom attended Santa Barbara City College where he began his writing career as a campus reporter. He worked as an intern news reporter for the Santa Barbara News-Press writing feature stories before moving on to San Francisco. At San Francisco State University Tom studied broadcast communications and began to focus on the Internet. He completed his graduate thesis on Internet advertising. Tom was the first student to ever focus on the Internet as a graduate student at San Francisco State University. After graduation he went to work for Zona Research in California’s Silicone Valley. As a research associate Tom supported senior analyst writing on the latest developments in the Internet industry. During the dot com boom Tom worked for several web businesses as a market researcher and analyst. As a writer and researcher Tom has authored various technical works including a training program for Charles Schwab security. Other projects included professional presentations on workplace violence and hiring security contractors. Tom has also written both fiction and non-fiction works and blogging for a travel website. He has published two books of short stories and completed two novels. Tom is the owner of Scribe of Life Literature and EbonyCandle.com. Tom is not the chief editor for the OnTechStreet. com. A news and information blog that focuses on tech news for African-Americans. The blog is the result of his desire to inform the African American community of the dangers and benefits of the cyber age. In his blog Tom reports on information security, new and analysis, scams and hoaxes, legal happenings and various topics that arise from the age of information. Tom believes that technology is a necessary tool for black people and they should know what is happening. Tom writes believing that techno speak is for the professional and that valuable information can be communicated using plain language. As a result he has embraced the motto, Less Tech, More Knowledge.

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