UPS/FedEx Packet Virus
Posted September 16th, 2008 by Ron
A common (and unfortunately, effective) technique for luring e-mail users into opening virus-launching attachments is to send messages that would appear to be relevant or important to many of their potential recipients. Such e-mail may contain an attached image, PDF document, MS Word document, or other. Any of these could be a potential virus.
One way for attackers to accomplish this feat is to make the virus-carrying messages appear to come from some type of business entity that many people commonly deal with, such as a large Internet auction or retailing site, a national bank, some other financial institution, or a major provider of common services.
You activate the virus by opening the attachment. When you open (or run) an attached file, you are in effect giving that file the same permissions that you yourself have on your computer. If your account has administrative privileges, as many MS Windows users have, the virus can do major damage very quickly.
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