Scammers are making use of tax-themed emails in order to infect PCs with malware -

Keep a strict watch over the tax scams that are appearing in your email inboxes. These emails of tax nature might be rigged with malicious malware to infect your PCs.

According to a report from IBM, as the latest filing deadline for TX being 15^th April approaches, they have discovered a string of phishing messages with Tax themes. These text-based phishing messages are being sent to not only personal email addresses but also to business ones as well. Their intention is only one; to infect the PCs.

These emails have been made with the ability to deliver a Trojan virus named ‘Trickbot’ that is able to steal the information on the person’s bank account from their internet sessions.

According to the report of IBM, these scammers are sending these Trojan files under the guise of famed payrool as well as HTR firms like that of ADP and Paychex. One thing that makes these messages really threatening that these messages unlike other scammers are grammar proofed and do not have any spelling mistakes.

These messages are also being sent from original email addresses such as “@paychex.mail” and “@adpnote.com”. However, in actuality, these domains are in control of these scammers.

How Trickbot Does work:-

Victims of this elaborated scam are fooled into opening these emails which have an attachment in the form of Microsoft Excel document but they are actually designed under a macrocommand. This macrocommand starts downloading the malicious code of Trickbot into PC automatically.

Other disastrous effects of being infected with Trickbot:-

Trickbot has been in use by the scammers for stealing the banking credentials of the victims for a long time. However, this virus can also do other sorts of mayhems as well. According to a statement by IBM which is as follows,

“If the PC is infected with Trickbot, then these cybercriminals will have the full control of your device and will then be able to do anything on your device. This also includes speaking to others available on your computer networks as well as emptying up the bank accounts of the company to cost them losses of millions of dollars.”

How to identify these scammed messages:-

According to IBM, scammers started sending these malicious messages back in January. In order to remain safe from these messages, the company is encouraging users to “Disable Macros” by default on their office documents.

If you are still in need to enable these Macros, then only on the documents you know are from trusted sources.