CPA Australia faked email contains malware attachment.

Today I thought I'd remind everyone to never trust attachments even when they may be from businesses or organisations you know. I'm not a member of the CPA, but many people are. The following email arrived today.

Everything in the text of the email is OK. However scanning the attachment showed only 4 out of 59 of the anti-virus scan engines would pick up the attachment contained malware. None of the commonly used in Australia anti-virus programs detected the malware meaning, if most people in Australia opened this attachment it may infect their computer without warning.

Don't be tempted to open attachments even if you know the organisation sending the email. If you wish to check the attachment you can save the attachment to a computer (I'd suggest a secondary computer that can be wiped if necessary). Then type virus into https://www.advancedsearch.com.au/SearchAustralia/ which will take you direct to the site I use to check suspicious emails. Upload and check the file. If one or more of the 59 scanning engines detect malware then the attachment is nearly certainly malicious. It may be worth waiting half a day or so before checking the attachment. That means others may have already uploaded the file and the scanning engines updated with new signatures. After checking the file if it's malicious delete the file immediately after checking and also empty the deleted files. You don't want to inadvertently infect your computer later.

Even if the attachment is reported as clean, there's still a small chance it is malicious. Check with the send to ensure they actually sent you the attachment.

Yes it is a pain to take this level of precaution, but it's more of a pain to get an infected computer repaired. Even more if the computer is on a network and infects other computers as well.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
IT support.