Virus Email From Company House

[mediamole]

Hi All

Just making you aware there's an email a lot companies getting claiming to be from Company House stating there's a complaint about your company. IGNORE! It's a virus in a ZIP folder.

Company House aware of issue.

http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/sec...ce/index.shtml

[Mike Hughes]

There are lots of virus loaded zip files being emailed. Complaints, tax refunds, invoices, etc. Just don't open anything in a zip file unless you know 100% what it is.

Mike

[mediamole]

Hi Mike,

Realise this on-going all time. The reason alerting is because this email doing rounds today makes it unique to you with domain and business information. And worded in a way whereby on first glance might think it genuine.

I studied computer science at University and very cautious with emails etc. but this email nearly duped me to open it.

[NormanRouxel]

Just as well you didn't fall for this as you may have ended up with your files encrypted and being held to ransom.

UPDATE. Another "Companies House" one just arrived here. Outlook correctly put it into the Junk E-mail folder but when I had a (very careful) look at it, there was a .EXE file inside the Zip and it cunningly had a PDF icon embedded.

Most worrying was that Norton Internet Security didn't detect the email, Zipfile or the .EXE as dangerous.

[mediamole]

Yeah you're right close call

[completerookie]

one thing you can change in your system, that helps, but does NOT cure

theres an option in the Folder-Options in windows systems., inside the VIEW tab, there is a tick box for "Hide extensions for known file types" - make sure you always tick this

I can send you a file called "thisFileName.txt.exe" and all you would then see is "thisFileName.txt" in actual fact, it would be a ".exe" and because you don't have "view extensions" turned on, you only see the ".txt"

it's not a perfect solution, but it does at least give you a clue its a ".exe" and not a ".txt"

one other one I've seen is "thisFileName .exe" (note the many spaces)
when you look at this, you may inadvertantly see "theFilename" and never actually see the ".exe" because the columns aren't wide enough

there's too many ways to catch the unwary.

kev

[Mike Hughes]

?

theres an option in the Folder-Options in windows systems., inside the VIEW tab, there is a tick box for "Hide extensions for known file types" - make sure you always tick this

I always have the extension viewable but from your description ticking the 'hide' box would hide the extension. Did you mean 'untick'?

Mike

[completerookie]

ok, ok, perhaps i've got a virus in my fingers,
yup your'e right.